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ALLWARD 


A STORY OF GYPSY LIFE 


By 


E. S. STEVENS 

i * 


Author of “ The Veil,” “ Sarah Eden,” etc. 



“ I seized the opportunity of addressing a few words to a 
Kirghiz woman, asking her if she did not weary of this rov- 
ing gypsy life of hers. 'We cannot be so indolent,’ she 
replied, ‘ as you mollahs are, and spend the entire day in 
one place. Man must move about ; the sun, the moon, the 
stars, the water, animals, birds, fish, all are moving ; only 
the dead lie motionless. ’ ’ ’ Vambeky 

“ Northward, southward, eastward, westward— all ward— ” 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 


'P'Zz 

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Copyright, 1915, by 
E. S. STEVENS 



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JUN -0 1915 


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CHARLES AND LIL 

Forest- Dwellers 



I have been concerned about the translation of 
certain gypsy words which occur in this book. 
Footnotes are irritating, a vocabulary wastes a read- 
er’s time and patience. And yet certain words, 
as “mush,” man or husband; “chavi6,” children; 
“yog,” fire; “rye,” gentleman; and “raunie,” 
lady, are ever on the lips of “travellers.” I have, 
therefore, rarely translated a gypsy word. The 
meaning of a word is usually clear from the con- 
text, and where it is not — it does not matter to the 
narrative. 


E. S. Stevens. 


ALLWARD 


































CHAPTER I 


He was conscious first of a gentle beating upon his 
face and hands as of a hundred soft weapons, of a con- 
tinued assault, the thrust against his flesh of innumer- 
able icj and minute swords. But his face was so 
chilled that it was more sensitive to the incessant 
onslaught than to the cold, and his hands were almost 
past feeling. What was it? 

Rain, it was rain. 

The smell of soaked and decaying leaves, a great 
pattering darkness ; wet, growing things, sodden and 
icy, rising about him on either side — what were they? 
Where could he be? He attempted to rise, and with 
his inability to make a single limb or muscle fulfil 
the bidding of his brain, abject fear and horror grew 
upon him. 

He tried to cry out — he could utter no sound. He 
made a desperate effort to articulate, but he could not 
bring his stiff tongue or silent throat to obey his 
urgent appeal. The rain was beating upon his hair, 
it seemed as though he were gradually melting and 
drowning, until he was part of the dripping under- 
growth which brushed his face with a menace of death. 
He wondered if his eyes were opened or closed. No, 
they were closed, for he felt the soft belabourment of 
the falling rain upon the lids. Horror shut him in. 
He thought that he had already died, and that his 
dead body was being washed into mutilation by the 
pouring water, and in the midst of that nightmare the 
wet fronds of an unseen plant moved over his face, 
and he knew that he was alive, though the terror of 


2 ALLWARD 

his vision was still with him. His soul cried out, his 
lips were frozen. 

Then again he passed into a state of merciful dream, 
into temporal death. 

An hour later, and it was dawn. The bracken, 
brown and draggled, the ragged winter grass, tangled 
and coarse, were bent and beaten, dripping ceaselessly 
in the soaking downpour. The oak trees, leafless and 
grey, lifted their naked boughs against the leaden 
morning. The fallen leaves at their roots glistened, 
sodden and flattened by the water. The dank, sweet 
smell of rain on the leaf-mould of many autumns 
went up like chill incense, through the bare twigs 
into the heavy sky. The ground was oozy and 
replete; still the rain fell monotonously, drumming out 
its rhythmic patter. Unceasingly it drummed and 
pattered; stupidly, continuously. 

The big man who lay at the margin of the wood 
did not stir. 


CHAPTER II 


He awoke to a sensation of exquisite pain. It 
seemed as though his body were in torture, and he 
uttered a sharp exclamation. His eyes were open this 
time, and he saw, not suddenly, but gradually, like a 
person recovering from an anaesthetic, who becomes 
slowly aware of his surroundings. 

“ You’d best lie still,” said a voice. It was the voice 
of a boy, or of a young girl, but low and a little husky. 
There was kindness, there was threat, in the brief 
command. 

The man realised that the pain had indeed come 
from an involuntary attempt to move. He let his 
eyes wander about his surroundings. An arm’s 

length from his head was the roof of a long, low tent. 
It was so constructed that one could sit, stoop, or lie 
in it, but not stand upright. It was a poor affair, 
but neatly put together. Patched and dingy cloths 
and pieces of sacking, secured ingeniously by thorns, 
were stretched over hazel stakes driven into the ground 
at one end and bent into a central pole, so that the 
roof was hoop-shaped. It was divided into two 
halves, in the centre being a small, unroofed portion, 
through which the smoke of a fire burning on a tin 
tray could escape. An iron rod with a hook at one 
end was so driven into the ground that a pot could 
swing from it over the blazing wood. In the further 
comer of the tent a young girl of about fifteen squatted 
upon a heap of old sacks, whittling a piece of wood 
with a knife. She hummed softly as she worked. 

She had a quantity of black hair, parted in the middle 
3 


4 


ALLWARD 


and plaited untidily on either side of her face. Her 
features were a little too heavy, and her old-young 
look was enhanced by a dirty grey shawl, which she 
wore crossed about her bosom. The man gazed at 
her in a manner that was half torpid. His lids were 
heavy, as though from a long sleep. 

She lifted brown eyes from her whittling, and saw 
that his were open. 

“ How’re you feelin’? ” she demanded, with a 
sudden smile. But she did not wait for his reply. 

“ You’d best drink some tea,” she added in a 
business-like tone. She reached for a chipped, blue 
enamel jug, and put the spout to his lips, supporting 
his head with one hand. He drank, half-chokingly, 
obediently. Her hands smelt strongly of wood smoke, 
the tea had long been brewed and was lukewarm and 
bitter. 

“ Where am IP” he asked in a moment. His voice 
sounded as if it did not belong to him. He had a 
difficulty in enunciating, in thinking what word to use, 
as if he were speaking a f oreign language. 

“ That’s the first sensible word you’ve a-spoke for 
three days.” 

Three days? What did she mean? Something was 
clouded in his brain. 

“Who are you, little girl?” he got out in a mo- 
ment. 

“ You needn’t be afeard,” she said pleasantly. 
“ You’re as safe as a mole beneath the ground. Dad’s 
not said a word. Bless you, he wouldn’t even call a 
doctor, in case-like.” 

He struggled with mental paralysis. 

“ I — don’t understand — I can’t remember.” 

“We picked you up early on Sunday morning. 
There you was like a log in the fern on the bank, 


ALLWARD 


5 


down ag’in t’other side of the bridge just ag’in 
the woods. My dad’s terriers smelt you out, and 
then he calls out that there’s a dead man lying by 
the bridge. My aunt come to see, and calls ’im a 
great fool. ‘ He’s no more dead than you are,’ she 
says, and they carried you along into her van. We 
was movin’ on, and my aunt was all for sendin’ my 
dad to call the police. But, dad, he says, { No, leave 
the pore chap until he can say a word for hisself,’ 
he says. 4 The less to do with constables and such 
like the better,’ he says.” 

The girl gave him a penetrating and half-curious 
look, then returning to her place, picked up some small 
pieces of chips and put them on the fire. 

“ You say — you picked me up by the roadside? ” he 
enunciated painfully. 

“ Yes — and you was wet. How did you come 
there? ” 

“ 1 don’t know,” he replied slowly. At the mere 
attempt to recollect, a numb pain behind his brows 
made him knit his forehead nervously. “ I can’t remem- 
ber,” he added, with a forced laugh. 

“Was they after you?” she asked, with a careless- 
ness which seemed to conceal information. 

“ They ? I — I don’t know. I can’t remember. 

I think something must have happened to me. It’s 
very strange — I can’t remember anything.” 

“Not nutthink at all?” she said incredulously. 
“ You’re kiddin’.” 

To his own surprise big tears suddenly began to 
well out of his eyes. They rolled down his cheeks 
easily, and chased each other down the rivulet they 
had made. 

“ There, there ! don’t cry about it,” she said hastily. 
“No one’s goin’ to give you up. It’s bad to see a 


6 ALLWARD 

man a-ruvverin’. You’d best sleep again. My dad’ll 
be back soon.” 

She fell to work again, humming to herself a little 
out of tune as she chipped and cut; half-rising at times 
to lift the lid from the pot suspended over the fire, 
and peep at its contents. His tears gradually ceased 
to flow, and a great and blessed drowsiness descended 
upon him. 

He awoke two hours later and found himself being 
steadfastly regarded by four pairs of eyes. One be- 
longed to the young girl he seemed to have dreamt 
of, another to a battered-looking man with a grey 
stubble growing over his chin and in patches over 
his face, and the two pairs left to be accounted for 
were the property of two small, wire-haired terriers, 
who lay as close to the fire in the tray as they could 
without singeing their noses. 

“ You’d be all the better for a bit of solid in yer 
stummick,” said the man, who was eating himself. 

u I feel hungry,” said the big, sick man weakly, as 
an appetising odour in the tent filled his nostrils. 

The girl rose, keeping her back bent, or she would 
have collided with the roof, and transferred some of 
the contents of the pot on to a plate. 

“ I’ll feed ’im,” she said. 

“ He ain’t a baby,” growled the man. 

“ He’s as weak as a baby yet,” she said, and brought 
the plate to the sick man on his bed of sacking. 

“ Thanks,” said the sick man gratefully. Again with 
her proximity came the strong and acrid odour of wood 
smoke. 

She propped him up against a bundle which she 
dragged under his shoulders, and fed him spoonful by 
spoonful. 

“ There’s forty pound reward offered for you,” said 


ALLWARD 


7 


the lined and grizzled man with dark eyes. 44 1 seen 
it up to-day.” 

“For me?” 

44 It looks like it,” said the other sagely. 44 Besides, 
if you wanted to keep it to yourself, you should keep 
holdt on your jib. You was a-talking of juries and 
magistrates and such-like all the time you was off 
your head.” 

44 I can’t remember,” said the man. A teased look 
came into his eyes. 

“ Don’t worrit him, dad,” said the girl. 44 You’ll 
make him cry again.” 

44 Forty pound or no forty pound,” said the grizzled 
man. 44 You’se safe with us. You wouldn’t believe 
it with my repitation — me carryin’ the belt for fifteen 
years and my father afore me, and friends with all 
the gentry about yer; but I was once took up meself. 
It was jug or pay up a fine for nothing at all, as you 
might say. I was having my drop in the pub with 
that girl’s grandfather, and the village cop dropped 
in with his ugly fat mui — his fat face, that is; and I 
delled him yek on the nok just beca’se he looked so 
pleased with hisself. Just light-’earted with beer, I was. 
Bit o’ fun, that’s all. And they give me a month.” 

44 1 remember jumping,” said the big man painfully, 
as though groping for hidden facts. 44 Nothing beyond 
that. Jumping from something that was going the 
deuce of a pace.” 

44 Come now, you’se Allward, ain’t yer? ” suggested the 
grizzled man, point blank. 

44 1 don’t know — in the least — who I am. It will 
come back to me presently. Allward? Allward? The 
name is not familiar to me — northward, southward, 
eastward, westward — all-ward ” 

44 He’s talking silly again,” interpolated the girl. 


8 


ALLWARD 


44 No, I am not,” said the invalid. 44 My brain is 
clear enough now. But half of it is locked up — dark. 
I can remember jumping, and rain — and you cutting 
wood a little while in here — but before that every- 
thing is lost. It is a blank. I don’t remember who 
I am, for the moment, for the moment of course. 
What makes you think that I am — the name you 
said? ” 

44 Allward, I said, Adam Allward. I’ll tell you fast 
enough ” 

44 No, dad, don’t,” interrupted the girl. 44 1 won’t 
have it. Can’t you see his brain is dizzied? You’ll 
have him ill again just as he’s getting better. You 
tool yer jib, you’ll mor him asaurus, ye boro 
dinnelo ! ” 

44 Call yer own dad names ! ” said the grizzled man. 

44 I’ll call you worse before I’ve done with you. 
Kekker rokker a lav else I’ll del you. There’s time 
enough for that! ” Her young face darkened and her 
hands clenched. 

Her father succumbed under this amazonian threat. 

44 I’m off,” he announced sulkily. 

44 Whar to ? ” she asked, after a pause. 

44 To Farley Old. The old man there is as divvy as 
a moon-calf, that he is. There’s lots of the gentry 
kind of cracked, nowadays. Come an’ talk to me the 
other day he did, an’ asked me a lot o’ questions. 
Wanted to know if I knew any pomes, and whether 
I believed in fairies, and what I did when I saw the 
moon.” 

44 What did you say to him ? ” 

44 1 said if he wanted pomes he’d better go to your 
Uncle Garge up ag’in Southampton, and that as for 
heathenish behaviour I knew better nor that. Then he 
shook his head, and says, 4 This damned eddication,’ he 


ALLWARD 


9 


says. Then he asks me about rat-catchin’. I says, 
6 That’s my secret,’ I says, 4 and if I wuz to tell you, 
look, ’twouldn’t be a secret no more. My bits of 
drab, the sweet pizen I makes,’ I says, 4 is my own 
secret. This dog yer, he’s in the secret too,’ I says, 
4 and he knows better nor than to tell. It’s the way 
I makes my livin’, an’ if I was to tell it, I should 
be makin’ you a present of my earnin’s.’ Then he give 
me panj kullas, and off he jailed.” 

44 Uncle Garge don’t know any pomes,” she said in- 
credulously. 

44 Don’t he ? I tell you he do. He knows a lot of 
them old gillis. That’s all pomes is, gillis.” 

44 Gillis is sung to music. Pome’s what they learns up 
in school.” 

44 You knows a lot better than your dad, my girl. 
That’s what comes o’ schoolin’. I tells you they that 
can’t write is a lot wiser than they what can, in five 
times out of ten. Look at Mister Trevor as I was 
speaking of. A lot of good his book learnin’ done 
him. His wife runned off and his darter killed 
herself.” 

44 They say he’s divvy,” said the girl curiously. 

Her father made his way out, stooping through the 
aperture, and slouched off, his two eager, bright-eyed 
curs following him. 

44 Who is that P ” asked their guest. 

44 That’s my feyther. He’s called Rat-catcher Sam 
about yer. Whatcher makin’ faces for? ” 

44 My arm hurts a bit,” said the sick man wryly. 

44 I’ll rub it with a little grease,” she said. 44 There’s 
a power of healing in hedgehog fat. My aunt have 
rubbed granny with it scores of times for a stiff leg.” 

She put down the dirty plate, and going into the 
comer, where clothes and other household goods 


10 


ALLWARD 


seemed to be stored, fetched out a small pot. She 
rolled up his sleeve — he saw that it was a shabby one, 
and began to rub in some yellowish grease with firm 
young hands. The vigorous rubbing seemed to ease 
the pain in a miraculous manner, and through the 
contact he felt oddly soothed, as if virtue had passed 
from the young girl’s strong young body into his, 
through her kneading finger-tips into his hairy arms, 
in which the big muscles were flaccid. 

“ Is this my coat? ” he asked, looking into her face. 

“ No — yours was wringing wet, so we put you on 
some of dad’s old things — you’re about his size. The 
clothes you had on was clotheses like gen’lemen 
wears. There’s the big fur coat what you had over 
’em, over your feet.” She lowered her voice. “ Don’t 
you fret about all them notes what was in yer pocket. 
Dad has ’em, and I’ll get ’em away from him if you 
wants it. Dad was for keepin’ it instead of the reward 
when he sees the notice up. But you shall have money 
when you wants it, never you fear.” 

“ Money?” he repeated drowsily, “you shan’t lose 
by keeping me — I’ll make it right for you when my 
head’s clear.” 

His lids were drooping, and he was soon asleep 
again and breathing heavily. She wasted neither 
words nor further rubbing on him, but gathering up 
the plates and unhooking the pot from over the fire, 
betook herself out of doors. The sun was shining 
though the wind was chilly, but her blood was young 
and her body hardy, and she did not feel the cold of 
the February day. A donkey was munching at the 
furze bushes close to the tent, a horse cropped near 
by, and upon a big holly bush which almost concealed 
the tent, some washed clouts were drying. Some 
spikes of furze were in blossom, and the yellow buds 


ALLWARD 


11 


showed up bravely in the sun. Two carts stood tilted, 
shafts upward, at a little distance, and beneath them 
some of the household appurtenances belonging 
to the tent-dwellers. A second tent, her father’s, 
was at a little distance. Mary, having gypsy blood, 
was cleanly and methodical. She rinsed the plates 
with water from a bucket, emptied into a jar the 
diminished contents of the pot which she scoured, then 
filled a blackened kettle and went with it into the 
tent, the muscles of her arms, which were reddened 
with cold, taut with the weight. She then hung it on 
the hook, and putting this and that straight, she 
settled herself again to whittling clothes-pegs. The 
man in the comer slept like a dog. Once he sighed, 
and the girl, stopping a moment, shook back her plaits 
and stared at him contemplatively. He was a finely 
featured man of the type that is either groom or 
parson. Beneath his few days’ beard the line of his 
jowl swept cleanly back to his well-set ears, which 
were a little pointed. Hair grew in them. His eye- 
brows were thick and clearly defined, and though he 
was young, her gypsy eyes, accustomed through long 
heredity to read the nature of a man by his face, saw 
lines of trouble, lines of impatience, lines of care. 
She also saw the lines that spoke of long sight, of a 
capacity for laughter as well as sighs. 

But there was little in her face to tell what she 
made of him. Her expression was almost animal-like 
in its inscrutability. Then her untidy plaits again 
fell over her shoulder, and she bent to her task 


anew. 


CHAPTER III 


The next day came and went by. The stranger 
woke at intervals to take food, but for the rest lay 
in semi-coma. The rain came beating down on the 
tent, which, protected as it was, and well constructed, 
was water-tight, warm and snug. The rain spat into 
the fire, and from time to time the wind drove puffs 
of smoke back into the tent. There was a continual 
tattoo of heavy drops on the roof. The sick man 
heard it as in a dream. It seemed infinitely pleasant 
to lie inert and weak in the warmth of the tent listen- 
ing to the rain and the wind rushing among the tree- 
tops outside, hurtling, swishing, shouting through 
the bare branches, shaking them as a terrier shakes 
a rat, breasting the wood with the noise of a heavy 
sea breaking in a gale, bending all obstacles as a 
rough wooer bends a maiden pliable to freedom and 
roughness rather than to pleading. It seemed familiar 
to him to lie in a tent. Somewhere he had surely 
been in a tent before. But where and how? The 
question of his own identity worried him sub-con- 
sciously. Yet he shrank from the knowledge of it, 
for something told him that it was not pleasant, that 
his ignorance of his former self was a restful, healing 
ignorance. 

The afternoon of the third day of his consciousness, 
though it was still raining and blowing, the tents were 
struck, and he, with the assistance of the rat-catcher, 
got into the larger of two carts which were standing 
under the trees. His head ached as after a drinking- 
bout, and with the weak laziness of a sick man he 
12 


ALLWARD 


IS 


watched the household goods accumulate about him. 
Then a smoky tarpaulin was placed over him as he 
lay on a heap of sacks. He scarcely found the energy 
to wonder what their destination might be. He did, 
however, ask why they were moving. Mary told him 
that the keepers did not allow them to camp more 
than two or three days in one place, and that they 
had been ordered to shift. 

“ And now we’se goin’ on to where my aunt’s 
camped, up ag’in Verely Wood,” she said, slinging 
a sackful of litter on to the summit of the medley 
the cart contained. “ You’d best kip under cover 
unless you wants to get wet,” she added shortly, and 
he withdrew his head beneath the tarpaulin again. 

They might be going to the devil for all he cared. 
He was possessed of an unreasoning sense of escape, 
of freedom, in spite of all his physical discomfort and 
weakness. It was odd that he could not remember from 

what he was escaping or why he had and here his 

brain began to swim and his head to throb. 

“ Best come off that tack unless you want to go 
mad,” a warning voice seemed to say within him. 
And he began to wonder if he really had lost his 
senses. 

There was a shouting, a commotion outside. He 
listened from the dark shelter of the tarpaulin. He 
heard the hoarse voice of the rat-catcher calling out 
directions to his daughter with good-humoured impa- 
tience. Some of what was said he did not understand. 
Some words, recurring again and again, were incompre- 
hensible to him. 

Mary lifted a comer of the tarpaulin. 

“ You all right in there? ” she asked. 

“Yes, thanks. There’s one thing I wanted to 
ask — — ” 


14 


ALLWARD 


44 What’s that? ” 

44 Have you been talking English all the time ? ” 

She flushed. 44 No, we hasn’t. We’se bin talkin’ our 
talk, what we unnerstands.” 

He let his head fall, relieved. 

44 I thought I’d forgotten the meaning of words,” 
he said. 

44 We uses lots of words you wouldn’t unnerstand,” 
she said reluctantly. 44 Travellers’ talk, that is. You 
bide quiet, and don’t worry yerself with thinkin’.” 

She dropped the tarpaulin unceremoniously, and 
he lost sight of her battered black hat and shining 
rain-wet face. There was a constant pattering on the 
tarpaulin, occasionally exchanged for heavy drops 
falling with the din of little drums as they went under 
trees. He heard the scrunching of the wheels, the 
bumping and cracking of loose boards, and now and 
again the wheels became muted and the cart lurched 
violently. He guessed then that they were off the 
high-road. But for the most part he lay in an elysium 
of drowsy well-being, in the darkness of the tarpaulin, 
a smell as of earth mingled in his nostrils with that 
of tar and wood smoke, for his head was partly sup- 
ported by a sack of potatoes. 

The winter darkness fell before they arrived. Once 
they stopped at a public-house, and after an interval 
Mary brought out a little hot whiskey-and-water to the 
invalid. 

44 Here, you drink this,” she said. 44 Dad’s sent it 
out — Twill do ’ee good.” She lowered her voice, and 
in a half-laughing way added, 44 You needn’t fear 
about bein’ reckernised, no one’s going to know ye 
now you’ve a-got that there beard.” 

He drank the burning stuff immediately, and saw 
in the growing dusk a modern rebuilt public-house 


ALLWARD 


15 


lying in a hollow, with a sign swinging from a post. 
Men were grouped about the door of the bar, for it 
had stopped raining. A road bordered on either side 
with leafless beeches and oaks ascending abruptly to 
the left; another, skirting the hill, met it where the 
public-house stood ; and a few yards further on, where 
a cluster of new-built houses and the gleam of a light 
in a village shop or so shone, he perceived a sign-post 
standing at cross-roads. 

“ You’re travelling late,” said a man, addressing the 
unshaven face that was peering over the edge of the 
cart. 

Before a reply could be framed Mary had appeared 
from the group at the door, and answered for her 
protege. 

“We was waiting to see if the rain would stop. 
Dad allowed it would. This yer’s my uncle. He’s 
bin very ill, and he ain’t quite right in the yed not 

yet.” 

“ My missus got a skirt waitin’ for you, Mary,” said 
the man good-humouredly. 

“ Thank-you kindly. She haven’t a pair of shoes 
what’d keep the wet out, I s’pose? I could do wi’ a 
pair of nice strong ones. I reckon she don’t wear hers 
too shabby, do she? ” 

“ She might. But I’ll lay you’ve a smaller foot than 
she have.” 

“ If ’twuz bigger, look, I couldn’t get into ’em.” 

“Don’t you say as I told you to ask, my girl, or 
my missus’d give me what-for. But there’s a pair of 
trousies of mine — ♦ — ” 

“ Never you fear.” 

“ There’s some of your people up at Verely now, 
if you’re up there. I seen the tents as I come through 
this marning.” 


16 


ALLWARD 


" If they was tents, they was none of our folk. 
Some dirty mumpers, I’ll lay. My aunt’s van’s 
there, but she don’t hold no doin’s wi’ low common 
folk.” 

The carts now moved on again. The tarpaulin was 
not pulled back, and the refugee lay gazing up at the 
fast darkening sky through the boughs which all but 
met overhead, and swayed and shook as the wind 
soused and rushed over them. In spite of it some 
birds, rejoicing that the rain had ceased, were twitter- 
ing and whistling in low, calling, throaty notes which 
spoke of coming spring. There was a sound of inter- 
rogation in their brief phrases. The air was bound- 
lessly sweet and fresh to him after his immurement 
beneath the tarpaulin. The boisterous cleanness 
seemed to sweep through him as it swept through the 
woods, and bring healing with it. Lying in the shelter 
of the cart he took draughts of rain-fragrant air into 
his lungs.- 

“ Mary ! ” he called, in a diffident voice. 

She came forward. She was walking in front of 
the cart by the horse’s head, while her father with the 
donkey-cart went ahead, his terriers beside him. 

“ Are we nearly there P ” 

“A matter of two miles further. You want any- 
thing? ” 

“ No,” 

“ Feel better? ” 

“ A heap better.” 

“ That was that drop of tatti pani.” Her teeth 
gleamed in a wide merry smile. “ There’s another of 
our words. I don’t know why, but you kind of make 
me laugh.” 

“ Why? ” 

“ Forgettin’ your own name. Tell me now, straight 


ALLWARD 


17 

and honest, don’t you know who you be? You know 
I ain’t one to tell on you.” 

“ I don’t know,” he replied helplessly. “ That’s just 
all — I don’t know.” 

She laughed, and her laughter was fresh and spon- 
taneous. 

“ Dordi, dordi ! ” she said. “ He don’t remember 
his own name. My dear Lord love us, it’s enough 
to make any one sav.” She dropped her new tone. 
“My dad don’t believe it. He thinks you’re hidin’ 
of it on purpose. Don’t the hearin’ of your own 
name bring it back to you ? ” 

“ What name? ” 

“ Adam.” 

He was silent. Whether it was that it was really 
familiar, or whether it was only familiar from the 
rat-catcher’s mention of it the other day, he could 
not tell. 

“ It may be,” he said doubtfully, after a pause. 

“ May be what ? ” 

“ Mine.” 

“ Well, don’t look so skeered about it,” she said 
compassionately. “ I got the bit out of the paper all 
about it. Dad heard ’em talking about it up at the 
pub the day we found you, and the next day I got 
a bit of newspaper to wrap a bit of meat in, and 
there ’twuz, all about you. I saved it. You shall see 
it to-morrow.” 

In his weakness he felt a ridiculous impulse to weep. 
“You’re very kind — — ” he said. “I’m no end of 
a nuisance.” 

“ Kekerk, my dear. Not you. You’se welcome to 
my tent till you’re yourself ag’in and able to get 
away. The longer you lies low along wi’ we, the less 
likely they is to find you.” 


18 


ALLWARD 


“ But where do you sleep ? 55 

“ I curls up in dad’s tan. When we moved you 
from aunt’s van she give us an old mattress, so there’s 
beddin’ enough for three, what with your big coat. 
That must ’ve cost some money.” 

She sighed. 

“ I’ll give you a good rubbin’ to-night. You won’t 
be so feeble on your perios to-morrow.” 

“ My what? ” 

“ If you bides along with we, you’se sartin to hear 
some of our talk. We talks kind of funny among our- 
selves. Perios legs.” 

He smiled faintly. 

“ Is it slang, or is it Romany ? I didn’t know 
any Romany-talking gypsies were left, outside 
books.” 

“ Nor you wouldn’t know. ’Tisn’t a thing we goes 
telling to every one. Gypsies varmin, they says, 
and lumps us in with all the dirt on the road. If 
any one was to ask me, look, I should say, we’se 
just travellers, respectable travellers, known to all the 
gentry round abouts, I should say. But round ’bout 
yer, we’se known. My dad’s been rat-catchin’ for 
forty year or more. But times isn’t what they was. 
Folks don’t send for him like they used ter. Lots of 
the old gentry’s gone, and the new ones isn’t free- 
handed. Lots of ’em comes from Lunnun, and a fine 
lot they knows about the Forest. They lives in new- 
built houses, with servants what they’ve brought down 
with ’em, and they on’y sees the Forest when they 
rushes through in their motor-cars, spoilin’ the roads 
for the likes of we. If I was to go to one of they 
new houses they’d bang the door in my face. With 
the old gentry ’twuz different. It’d be 4 How are you, 
Mary ? ’ and when I’d a ask if they’d a bit of poggado 


ALLWARD 


19 


hawben, I’d bring away my basket full. My aunt 
she used to go round reg’lar to the big houses, so did 
granny, but they don’t now. But granny she used to 
do a bit of dukkerin’ as well, and that brought her 
in a bit of luvvel. But now they lels you, as like as 
not, for tellin’ a fortune.” 

“ Do you tell fortunes ? ” 

“ Kekker. What’s the use? ” 

The sound of her fresh though always husky young 
voice in the semi-darkness was very pleasant to him. 
They were bumping along off the high-road now, 
and soon he realised that they had come to their 
halting-place. Three or four filthy, unwashed chil- 
dren stood beneath the hollies, with bare feet and 
grimy faces and unwiped noses, to watch the 
proceedings. 

“Where d’you come from?” asked Mary, as she 
lifted off a sack full of straw which lay on the top of 
the cart. 

“ Over there,” said one of the children. 

“ Well, then, duckies, you clear off quick.” 

“ Some dirty mumpers’ brats,” she said to the 
invalid. “ Now you wait yer in the cart half a minute, 
and I’ll have summat for you to sit on.” 

He half rose from the cart. “ I can help you.” 

“ You’d be more hinderment than help. You bide 
where you be. There’s aunt gettin’ out of her van; 
one finger of hers’d be worth more than your two 
arms.” 

• Her voice was peremptory, and as she spoke she was 
already driving in stakes, spreading the straw to form 
a floor, and placing one of the mattresses in the cart 
upon it. The rat-catcher was busying himself with 
the donkey and horse, which had been removed from the 
shafts of the two carts. 


20 


ALLWARD 


The sick man was assisted to the ground, and was 
soon beside a fire kindled in the iron tray, in the 
shelter of a partially erected tent. Mary’s aunt, a tall 
buxom woman with a much-tanned face, and a dirty 
but gaudy kerchief knotted around her neck, assisted 
her, much cheerful talk going on between them. 

“ You kin put up one of they tans on the bit of 
ground the van’s been standing on, it’s as dry as a 
bone,” she said, “ if your dad’ll shift en a little.” 

The big man sat on a bucket, his head still aching 
like thunder, and watched them with interest. These 
wanderers, accustomed like Bedouins to continual 
change of abode, had become expert at setting down 
their movable dwellings. The final touches, coney- 
like, tailor-bird-like, of pinning corners together and 
securing the heterogenous covering with pin-thorns, 
together with the arrangement of the interior, were 
left for the time, but the first erection, the mere shelter, 
was swiftly accomplished. 

Next an iron hook was driven into the earth, and 
a pot which the rat-catcher filled with water was soon 
swinging over the lighted fire. Tea, rather weak, 
was brewed and drunk without milk, but plenty of 
sugar, and a loaf cut up and divided, each person being 
assigned a lump of dripping. 

“ This yer’s my Aunt Gerania what had you in her 
van,” said Mary, indicating her relative, who had lit 
a short and blackened pipe, and was puffing at it with 
great enjoyment. 

“You better, my gennleman? ” inquired Aunt 
Gerania, with a comfortable, husky voice. She paused 
to spit neatly outside the tent. “ Lord love my body 
and soul, but you’d ’a’ died if my brother yer hadn’t 
’a’ picked you up when he did. So the gavengros 
after ye! Well, they shan’t lei you while you’se 


ALLWARD 


21 


here. A funny place to look for a gennleman what’s 
runned away, in a tent like this yer, wouldn’t it now, 
my gennleman! You’ve done ’em prapper, so you 
’ave. Nor you won’t forgit who helped you and 
looked after you, neither, will you, my gennleman, 
when the money’s in your pocket? ” 

“ There’s forty bar reward,” began the rat-catcher, 
removing his pipe from his mouth, his small black 
eyes, set in deep crow’s feet, blinking like a bird’s. 

“ You shut up now,” said Mary. 44 1 told you he 
said as the money ’d be all right as soon as he was 
hisself ag’in.” 

44 But forty bar is ” 

44 Don’t you go ag’in Mary,” chimed in her aunt. 
44 The rakli’s got more sense nor what you have when 
it comes to a bit of vongar, I’ll lay. We all knaws 
wher your money do go to. Mary have her reasons.” 

44 The gennleman’s sensible enough now,” grumbled 
the old man obstinately. 44 He’s got my clothes to 
his back, and my food in his belly, and my roof over 
his head, and the sooner he knaws that the coppers is 
arter him, and that I stands to get forty bars if I gives 
him up, the better for he.” 

44 Look here,” interposed the stranger at last. 
44 We’d best get to some sort of understanding. If 
you know who I am, you’re wiser than I am. I’ve 
a brain that’s like a clean slate at the present minute, 
and a head that aches like hell. Something’s gone 
wrong with my brain. Who am I? Have I any rela- 
tives who are hunting me up ? ” 

44 The police is huntin’ you. Forty pounds reward 
is what’s bein’ offered for you, my gennleman, and 
that’s God’s truth, s’up me Duvvel. It may be 
doubled by now, for all I knaws. I don’t read the 
papers, I don’t.” 


22 


ALLWARD 


“ It sounds melodramatic,” said the stranger. He 
turned on Mary sharply. “ Is all this true ? ” 

She had pity on him, for perspiration stood on his 
forehead, knotted by the effort of thinking and the 
throbbing of his temples. 

“ You needn’t worry,” she said, with stolidity which 
hid compassion. Then she suddenly became an active 
partisan. “ There’s none of our folks would speak to 
dad if he wuz to give you up. It’s true enough what 
he says. Yer’s the bit of paper I told you ’bout this 
marning.” 

She produced a blood-stained and dirty piece of paper. 

“Read it out, Mary,” said her father. “You’se a 
scholard.” 

“ I can’t read it quick,” said Mary, with a sudden 
access of shyness. “ There’s long words in it. Let he 
read it for hisself.” 

The stranger took the paper from her hand. 

“ Adam Allward, the well known philanthropist 
and director of the Yyse Security Bank which ceased 
payment yesterday morning, was, according to a sen- 
sational report, to have been arrested, owing to certain 
investigations which are being pursued by the police. 
The strictest secrecy was observed, but in spite of 
precautions Allward has made his escape. He left 
his house unknown to any one, even to Mrs. Allward, 
early yesterday morning, eluding the detectives which 
were shadowing him, and has not been seen since. A 
taxi-driver reports that a man in an evidently dis- 
turbed mental condition, wearing an overcoat and cap, 
approached him yesterday afternoon in Sackville 
Street, and ordered him to drive to Winchester. At 
Winchester the man left the taxi, telling the chauffeur 
to get himself a drink and sandwiches, and handing 


ALLWARD 


23 


him a sovereign, while he himself walked up and 
down as if in deep thought or agitation. He then 
got again into the taxi, and directed the chauffeur to 
drive towards Bournemouth. The man did so. Near 
Brockenhurst, however, he turned round to discover 
that his fare was no longer in the taxi. It is con- 
jectured that the mysterious stranger must have leapt 
from the car while in motion between Lyndhurst 
village and Brockenhurst. The chauffeur describes 
his fare as a big, clean-shaven man. The cap he wore 
was pulled down well over his face, so that his 
features were more or less disguised, but when shown 
a photograph of Mr. Allward last night, the chauffeur 
thought it possible that his fare and the missing 
financier and philanthropist might be one and the 
same person. The police are now scouring the New 
Forest for clues.” 

“ Well, have ’ee finished? ” asked Sam, as the stranger 
put the piece of paper down. 

But the stranger made no answer. There was a 
buzzing and throbbing in his temples, as he strained 
to remember. Whatever or whoever he might be, 
he had a strong conviction that he had been neither 
philanthropist nor financier. He pressed his hands 
to his forehead. Something must burst, something 
must give way, before he could think clearly. Who 
am I, who am I? was the question that battered at his 
paralysed brain-cells. 

“ Lave him be,” said Aunt Gerania. “ The man’s 
all gone white.” 

“ You’ll make him b&d ag’in, that’s what you’ll do,” 
said Mary. 44 Do ye want to mor the mush? ” 

44 Make him lei a drop of peeamexy,” said Aunt 
Gerania. She put down her pipe and filled up her 


ALLWARD 


24 

own cup with the now dark concoction. “ Yer, give 
him this. ’Twould upset the best on us to yer the 
gavmushes was arter us.” 

But their guest was struggling desperately, using 
all his forces of body and will to recover the know- 
ledge that was just beyond his grasp. The story he 
had read recalled something to him. It was as if he 
were a drunken man blindly moving a key over the 
surface of a door in the hope of meeting the key-hole. 
Then suddenly, as if the key had found the lock, the 
closed door in his brain swung open — and in remem- 
bering, he fainted. 

“ There, I tauld you how ’twould be,” said Mary. 
She dragged him partially outside the tent, and fetch- 
ing the pail from which she had recently filled their 
tea-kettle, she dashed some water on the unconscious 
man’s face with her hands. The old rat-catcher did 
not trouble to move, but sat inside, his knees drawn 
up, imperturbably smoking. To his mind the fugi- 
tive’s emotion was only an added proof that he was 
the man whose name was on every one’s lips. Finally, 
with a grunt, he knocked his pipe out against one of 
the hazel rods which supported the tent, and took 
himself off to chop the green furze tops he had 
gathered, while the women were busying themselves 
with the tent, into fodder for the horse and donkey. 
He tumbled the succulent light green prickles into 
an old sugar-box, and chopped them up with a sharp- 
edged mattock, while the animals, tied to the larger 
cart, lifted their drooping heads at the welcome 
sound. The clip-clop-clop, clip-clop-clop of this 
operation, already familiar to the stranger, was the 
first sound which met his ears when he returned to 
consciousness and to the knowledge of himself. There 
was no closed door now. He remembered everything. 


ALLWARD 


25 


He lay still, with shut eyes, adjusting himself, as it 
were, to his situation. He felt Mary’s hand against 
his cheek, and smelt the eternal wood smoke and the 
earthy aroma which clung to her. A certain sense of 
the ludicrous made him smile faintly to himself. What 
an odd way of escape from circumstances had opened 
up to him by a miraculous chance ! 

44 You’re feelin’ better now? ” asked Mary. 

44 There, the poor dear, look, the way he’s sweat- 
in’,” said Aunt Gerania, with interest. 44 Dordi, 
dordi ! He looks as if he’d seen a mullo. To see a girt 
man lyin’ like that turns me ! ” 

44 I’m all right now,” said the stranger, lifting him- 
self. 44 I’m sorry to have gone off like that.” 

44 You git inside by the fire,” said Mary. 44 Yer 
shoulders is wet and muddy. You’ll dry inside.” 

She helped him in, and the two women followed him. 

44 Don’t you worry,” she said kindly. 44 Dad have 
got money of yourn, and a bird in the hand is worth 
a rabbit in the bush, especially when the bush is a 
police-court. He ain’t likely to give you up, never 
fear.” 

44 Money? ” he said abruptly. 44 How much? ” 

Mary disregarded Aunt Gerania’s nudgings. 

44 A matter of twenty-five pound in paper money, 
and a gold watch, and a sort of bank-book. Then 
there was a bit of writing or two in a case, but there 
wasn’t no name to them.” 

44 Has your father got them? ” asked the stranger. 

44 You never tauld me about the watch, Mary,” put 
in her aunt. 

Mary disregarded Aunt Gerania again. 

44 Dad’s got ’em, I dar say.” 

44 He’d better burn the case.” 

44 And the money ” 


26 


ALLWARD 


“ And the watch,” put in Aunt Gerania. 

“ Your father can keep them, if he can keep his 
tongue too.” 

“ No fear of that, my gennleman.” 

He reflected a minute. 

“ But what you goin’ to do yerself ? ” asked Aunt 
Gerania, taking advantage of the pause. “ It’s not to 
our interest to say it, look, my gennleman, but if you 
wants to get off you’d best get a shillin’ or two of it 
back.” 

“I don’t want to get off,” he said slowly. “ Do you 
travel the country ? ” 

“ Oh yes, my gennleman. We travels from one place 
to another yerabouts.” 

“ I don’t know this country,” he replied. “ I 
shouldn’t mind seeing it. And I’ve a fancy to see it as 
you do, to live as you do, to clear out of civilisation 
altogether.” 

“ But a gennleman like you couldn’t live like what 
we does.” 

“Why not? But I shall want this tent, and my 
keep for a bit. Your father can well afford that out 
of what he’s got of mine.” 

There was a pause. 

“ I don’t know what Sam’ll say to it,” said Aunt 
Gerania doubtfully, resuming her pipe. “ Suppose 
the gavengros was to find out you was with us, they’d 
lei us. And forty pounds ” 

“ How do us knaw as we’d get it ? ” interrupted 
Mary sharply. “ Here’s twenty-five bar safe and a 
gold ora in dad’s pocket, and to get the other we’d 
have to go to the police, and maybe the seshins, and 
a crowd of folk askin’ our business. The gennleman’s 
right: if he stays along with us, they’ll never find 
him.” 


ALLWARD 


n 


Aunt Gerania smoked meditatively. 

Mary turned to the stranger. 

“ Our ways wun’t suit you, a gennleman what’s 
used to easy livin’.” 

66 They will suit me well enough,” he replied. “ As 
for easy living, I’ve slept before now on the ground, 
and walked all day on an empty stomach.” 

Mary stared at him with interest. 

“ What you do that for? ” she asked. 

“ Not on purpose,” he said, with a dry smile. “ For 
much the same reason as I’m doing this now.” 

“ Was the cops after you? ” asked Aunt Gerania. 

“No,” said he; “not in person. As symbols ” 

He broke off. 

“ As what? ” said Mary. 

“ I was talking nonsense,” he said. “ I’ve always 
been a walker. There’s a wandering instinct born in 
some legs. There was in mine.” 

“ That true enough,” said Aunt Gerania, spitting 
into the fire. “ Them that’s got it can’t never bide in 
one place.” 

Mary’s eyes travelled innocently to his calves. 
They were, indeed, the calves of one who had used 
his legs. Then they returned to his face, and 
one of her pretty and brilliant smiles dawned into her 
eyes. 

“No one won’t know you for a gennleman now,” 
she said. “ If you was to see yourself now you’d 
a-know what I means.” 

“ And what does you mean? ” asked her aunt. 

For answer Mary rummaged in a corner full of odds 
and ends, and pulled out a looking-glass in a partially 
broken frame. She handed it to their guest, taking a 
coy look at it herself as it went by. 

“ Lordy, what a sight I be ! ” she said self-con- 


28 ALLWARD 

sciously, smoothing her dark hair about the temples with 
dissatisfaction. 

He took the mirror from her outstretched hand. 
He was surprised himself when he saw the face 
reflected in it. Matted hair, a three-days’ growth of 
tawny beard, a pale dirty face, and eyes that showed 
mental strain peered from it at him. 

44 Good Lord ! ” he said. 44 They’ll hang me at sight.” 

Mary stared at him. 

44 If I’m to be a vagabond and outlaw, I’ll be a clean 
one. Your face isn’t dirty. How do you wash, Mary? ” 

44 I cleans myself in a bucket o’ water,” said she 
bashfully. 

44 Have you ever had a bath? ” 

Mary’s wide and scornful smile rewarded him. 
44 Not me,” said she. 44 I kips myself clean without that.” 

44 We ain’t like them lousy mumpers,” said Aunt 
Gerania, more plainly. “ We never bin in the ’Ouse. 
That’s where they baths yer. And they mumpers needs 
it.” 

Mary seemed to consider the conversation bordering 
on the indecent. 

44 D’you want a bit of a wash? ” she inquired. 44 I’ll 
shove you in a bucketful of water in a minnit, an’ 
the clothes what you had on when we found yer. 
They’se dry by now, and them’s you’se got on now 
is wringing where I throwed water over your yed. 
I got to spik to dad now.” 

44 An’ I’m goin’ back to the wagon,” said Aunt 
Gerania, tapping the ashes from her cutty. 44 So I’ll 
say good-night to you, my gennleman, an’ good luck. 
You needn’t fear ’bout us tellin’ on yer, or talkin’ 
careless. We kips to ourselves. ’Tis a beautiful night, 
and we shall have some dry weather, please God.” 


CHAPTER IV 


In spite of Aunt Gerania’s prognostications, when 
the alien awoke the next morning, it was to hear the 
wind rushing over the trees and a light rain pattering 
against the tent and the bushes beside it. He felt 
infinitely better after a long and dreamless sleep. He 
stretched his legs and came violently into contact with 
one of the tent-rods. Then he sat up in half humor- 
ous survey of his surroundings. During his days of 
delirium and illness he had not once removed his 
garments, or rather the clean dry shirt and pair of old 
trousers the rat-catcher had put on him when they 
had found him soaked and unconscious in the bracken. 
But last night, in spite of a feeling of dizziness and 
unsteadiness, he had undressed and used the rat- 
catcher’s shirt in lieu of pyjamas. This morning he 
struggled into his coat and a pair of trousers, thrust 
his feet into his boots, and finding the empty bucket 
in which he had washed the night before, he went out 
to search for water for his ablutions. The wind was 
boisterous and chill, but not cold or violent, and he 
drew it into his lungs for a moment as he stood 
shivering in the wet fine grass and downbeaten heather 
and bracken. 

A thin thread of smoke went up already from Aunt 
Gerania’s caravan, but there were no signs of move- 
ment from the rat-catcher’s tent. The encampment 
stood upon rising ground, a moor stretched away on a 
high plateau to their left, gradually sloping upwards. 
On the other side of the camp was a wood. He con- 
cluded that water was to be found somewhere at the 
29 


30 


ALLWARD 


bottom, so followed a downhill path to the left of the 
camp which led into the woods. The rain was now 
scarcely more than a fine drizzle. The wind rushed 
through the bare branches of the great grey beeches, 
making a commotion; but within the wood, on account 
of the thick holly bushes which surrounded it and 
interspersed themselves among their bigger neigh- 
bours, breaking the force of the noisy gusts, it was 
still with the stillness that is always to be found 
beneath large trees, and is part of the soul of the 
forest: a stillness independent of a myriad petty 
sounds, such as the cracking of twigs, the rustle of a 
bird or rabbit in the brake, or the like. The roots of 
the beeches and the bases of their smooth massive 
trunks were coated with moss of a vivid green and a 
grey lichen. Beneath was a floor of fallen leaves, 
fox-red in their wetness, here and there broken by 
patches and tuffets of the same velvety moss that grew 
on the beeches, of bracken sodden with the rain and 
stray roots of heather. There was a continual drip- 
ping of water, pools lay beneath the hollies, and down 
the sloping paths small rivulets ran, washing aside 
leaf-mould and leaves, and discovering gravel beneath. 
But it was not so easy to find water to wash with. By 
continually descending he did, indeed, come to a 
ditch partially filled with rain-water, but it was 
muddy. He had no mind, however, to go farther or 
to confess himself beaten, so he filled his bucket half 
full, and set out back up through the wood, somehow 
missing the path by which he had descended. He 
emerged at a spot which seemed almost identical with 
that upon which they had encamped, but it was bare 
except for a patch of yellowed grass and ashes, show- 
ing traces of a former encampment. Following the 
hollies along the verge of the wood, he caught sight 


ALLWARD 


31 


a yard or so further of the smoke of a fire. But this 
proved a disappointment. Three tents, larger and 
dirtier than the rat-catcher’s, were indeed pitched under 
shelter of the hollies, but the sight of some four or 
five filthy little children running about barefoot, and 
a girl with a crying baby, made him beat a retreat. 
The next moment he almost ran into Aunt Gerania’s 
yellow van. She herself stood at the top of the steps, 
apparently engaged in scouring some pot or pan. 

“ There you are then,” she greeted him, measuring 
his unkempt length with a smile. “ Why, what you 
bin doin’ to yerself ? ” 

u Getting fit,” he replied, with an answering smile 
out of his green-brown eyes. 

“ You done it very quick,” she retorted. “ Breakfast 
will be ready in a minute.” 

“ And I shall be ready to eat it,” he replied, and 
retreated into the tent to dress. Mary brought him a 
hunk of bread and weak tea before he had finished. 
With his convalescence her air of protection and 
command had departed, and this morning she looked 
at him almost shyly. She saw that he was younger 
than she had at first taken him to be. He had the 
look of the class which cultivates bodily fitness and 
physical hardness as an end rather than a means. 

“ What’s the time, Mary? ” he asked her. 

“ Somewheres about seven, I dar say,” she returned 
with a gypsy’s readiness. “ You’re better to-day, 
aren’t you? I wouldn’t have thought you could have 
got out of the tent without dad to-day seein’ what you 
was yesterday.” 

“ It was time for me to get better,” he said. “ I’d 
been a log long enough.” 

She sat down on the upturned bucket at the opening 
of the tent and watched him comb his hair with the 


32 ALLWARD 

small pocket-comb which was the only article of toilet 
he possessed. 

44 You won’t look so bad when yer beard ’ve growed,” 
she observed. 

He threw a quick glance at her. 

44 It is kind of you to say so.” 

44 That’s cheap kindness, that is,” she answered, on 
the defensive as if she suspected sarcasm. 

44 And have you had your breakfast? ” 

44 Long time.” 

He was silent for a moment, and then he said, 44 Did 
you speak to your father last night about my staying 
with you ? ” 

44 Yes. He said you can bide, if you don’t mind our 
rough ways.” 

44 And the tent? ” 

44 You can have this yer tent of mine for now. 
Dad’ll get me some more blankets bymeby. I can 
slip in along o’ dad, or in Aunt Gerany’s van as I did 
last night.” 

44 How long will your father camp here? ” 

44 Three days, or four, maybe. They knows my 
father ’bout yer. He often haves a civil conversation 
with the keeper. They knaws he ain’t like they dirty 
peerdies in beyind.” 

44 Dirty what? ” 

44 Good-fer-naughts like those over there.” She 
moved her head in the direction of the tents he had 
stumbled across that morning. She smiled broadly. 

44 You’ll pick up some of our talk if you bides with us.” 

He felt none of the literary interest in the fact which 
some men would have felt. He was no Borrovian, no 
philologist. To him up to the present minute, gypsies 
and tramps had been people whose way of life seemed 
to him eminently rational and free, but unsavoury at 


ALLWARD 


33 


times. He had loved the fact that there were nomads, 
that there was a community which defied community 
so to speak. He had never failed to put his hand in 
his pocket when he had met such a wanderer, out of 
instinctive sympathy with a perversity which was 
practical. He hated the whining of the mendicant, 
but the gypsy of the race-course and woodland had 
attracted him. 

He looked at her with an odd expression in his green- 
brown eyes. 

“ I’ll have to learn how to put up this tent, if I stay 
with you,” he said. 44 1 can manage the ordinary 
camping tent, but this is like a woman’s dress — all 
pins.” 

44 It’s simple enough to put a tent up,” said she. 
44 But it ain’t every one as can do it well. There’s 
tents and tents. Look at they mumpers round the 
earner. There’s not much wrong with the making 
of the tent so far as that goes, but look at them! 
Filthy yold rags and bits of petticoat all skewered 
together any’ow. I don’t hold with dirt.” 

44 Well, and what’s this made of? ” 

44 Made wi’ blankets o’ course — they brown blankets 
is the best to kip out the rain, and they be warm, too. 
Good enough for any one that is, though not so good 
as a van. But there poor creeturs, they lives no 
better ’n rats. We don’t have nothin’ to do with they, 
except to help ’em now and again. And some of 
them that takes to the life from the towns is helpless 
as babes. We never starves. At one time of the 
year there’s one thing to do, at another there’s 
another. But they takes to the life accidental, through 
hoppin’ or gettin’ into trouble, and there’s not much 
else they can do out of the hoppin’ season but mump. 
Now a man what’s traveller’s blood in him will always 


ALLWARD 


34 

know what to do to arn a meal. In the spring there’s 
plovers’ eggs. One of them wouldn’t know where to 
look for plovers’ eggs, not they. You see birds and 
animals and such-like has their rounds, like we has 
our rounds, and if you knows the round, you knows 
where they be likely to go to. My dad ’d find a dozen 
eggs in a morning, and they’ll not see one. He 
knows where to look for the nests, and he’ll mark 
where a plover do drop a mile away. And plovers’ 
eggs worth three-and-six a dozen in Ringwood or 
Christchurch where we sells them, or at one of the big 
houses.” 

“ But plovers’ eggs won’t keep you all the year.” 

“ You’re right, my gennleman. But they’s other 
things.” 

“ What are they? ” 

She laughed. 

“ Makin’ pegs, like I does. All you wants for that is 
some old tins what you gets at back doors, a few tacks, 
and there you are.” 

“ And wood for the pegs.” 

“ Well, dad cuts hazels for that, or we buys a 
bundle.” 

“And what else?” he questioned her, half for the 
pleasure of her husky voice and pretty eyes fixed 
earnestly on his. 

“ Ever so many things. A man can always get a 
bit of work from a farmer in summer time. Then 
there’s tinkerin’. A sheet of tin on’y costs three- 
pence, and a man like Jeffrey Whicher, a traveller 
who’s a cousin of dad’s and camps between yer and 
Beaulieu, can sell saucepan covers and frazzlengros 
and that for a lot of money. I’ve a saucepan in the 
cart over thar what he made. The Whichers is very 
respectable travellers, very clean, they is.” 


ALLWARD 


35 


“ But suppose work is bad and it’s winter? ” 

“ Lordy, what a lot of questions you asks ! Well, 
even then you needn’t starve. There’s plenty of rabbits 
about.” 

He smiled. 44 But poaching — — ” 

“No ’tain’t then,” she said, quickly defensive. 44 A 
stoat has his rounds like you and me, and if you knows 

them and listens for the squeakin’ ” 

44 I got a rabbit once like that years ago,” he said. 
“ But by accident.” He drained off the tea. 44 Go on, 
what else beside rabbits ? ” 

44 Us girls can always pick up a bit.” 

“ How?” 

44 Round at the doors. There’s lot’s of people what 
lets us have an old skirt or dress, or a bit of bread. 
Well, I got to goo along with my basket to Burley 
Street. Be you a-comin’? ” 

He reflected, coolly. 

44 Yes, I’ll come some of the way.” 

44 Come on, then. But unless you want folks to stare 
at you, you’d better put an old coat of dad’s ag’in. 
Your coat’s too new.” 

He had forgotten his role of runaway criminal, and 
he put on the coat with a smile flickering in his eyes. 
Runaway he certainly was, but as for the absconding 
banker, he wished him luck, and congratulated him- 
self upon having unwittingly started the police upon 
a false trail. But how was it that these people, honest 
themselves, had befriended a man of the type they 
took him to be? Was it on account of some unwritten 
law of the road amongst people who were themselves 
almost outlaws, or was it because he happened to 
have twenty-five pounds in his pocket? Yet if they 
had taken it from him and left him to his fate by the 
roadside, no one would have been the wiser. 


36 


ALLWARD 


A watery sun shone out as they struck out across 
the moor, getting into a road which shone like a silver 
ribbon in the green-brown heather. 

44 Know where you be? ” 

“ No.” 

44 That road goes up to Pickett’s Post,” said she. 

44 It’s like Dartmoor,” said he. 

44 Have you a ben down there ? ” 

44 I know every foot of it, every inch of it. I walked 
over it, hunted over it, fished on it.” 

Her mouth became crisp with astonishment. 44 You’re 
a gennleman what hunts ? ” she said. 

44 No,” said he. 44 I gave it up. It seemed to me to 
be getting too snobbish for a plain man like myself ; 
by which I mean that people who hunt for the love of 
it are crowded out by a lot of sportsmen who hunt 
because it is smart.” 

He spoke with a note of disgust in his voice, and then 
said to her, 44 And have you camped as far away as 
that? ” 

44 No, we doesn’t get down there. We goes to 
Poulner or Forest Comer, and Verely where we is 
now, and on towards Brockenhurst, Settly Brake, 
Brockenhurst Weirs and Fuzzy Lodge; and from 
there to Hill Top and Hythe Cross Roads, and then 
back ag’in to Yerely. But I knows some gypsies what 
camps here about this time of year what travels between 
Kent and Devonsheer. They goes to Kent for the 
hoppin’.” 

44 Is Verely a regular camping-ground, then? ” 

44 Well, you see, my gennleman, it lies between two 
districks like. There’s travellers what comes across 
the Avon up from Ringwood yer, and then to Poulner 
Pits and back through Darset round Cranbourne 
Chace way. Then there’s some what comes up from 


ALLWARD 37 

Salisbury way, and they don’t go no further than 
Verely neither.” 

She walked along in a somewhat slouching way, 
her basket supported against her left hip. He noticed 
a couple of silver rings on her hand, and some red 
beads around her brown throat. She wore a some- 
what soiled and old blouse without a collar, and a 
kerchief of red and blue of the sort displayed in 
village shops knotted about her throat. For the first 
time it struck him that she was unusually pretty. 
Though her face was somewhat too long and thin, 
the mouth was curved wistfully and attractively, and 
her eyes were soft, brown and gentle like an animal’s. 

44 Don’t call me 4 my gennleman,’ ” said he 
abruptly. 

44 What shall I call you then? Mister Allward ? ” 

44 That name’s as good as any other.” 

44 But it’s yours, an’t it? ” 

44 It shall be mine because I like it. What was the 
first name? ” 

She laughed, somewhat puzzled. 44 You forgotten 
again? Adam, ’twas.” 

44 That is better still, because it is a good earthy 
name. I’d like you to call me that.” 

She blushed and smiled. 44 Awright. ’Twould be 
safer-like. Lots of travellers is called Adam.” 

They passed a green on which a few geese were 
plucking at the muddy grass. 

44 I’m going back,” he said. 44 Is this Burley 
Street? ” 

44 Yes. Don’t lose yerself.” 

She trudged on, and he went back in the direction 
he had come. As he walked uphill a big motor 
rushed up behind him. The road was narrow, and 
though he kept well to the left, the car did not swerve 


38 


ALLWARD 


the least fraction to the right, which would have en- 
abled him to keep on the road. A furious toot-toot 
sounded in his ears, and he had to leap quickly into 
the muddy ditch, so slippery that he fell, while the 
man driving swore at him as he passed. He picked 
himself up and stood still for a moment, with a look 
in his eyes which it was a pity that the motorist 
missed. Then he shook himself and moved on. For 
the first time he realised what it must be to belong 
to a class which has no right to resentment, no right 
to pride, no inherited right to anything but the air 
and the sunlight and the high-road, which no man can 
forbid them. Small wonder that they make the best 
of life as they find it, just as the fox and the rat and 
the other vermin make their best. The earth is an 
impartial mother, she calls nothing unclean, she 
brands no living thing pariah. The outcast sleeps 
nearer her heart than the rich man, and she tells him 
secrets which the rich man may never hear. This is 
the true meaning of the parable of Dives and Lazarus. 

Richard Lyddon knew what it was to be poor, he 
knew what it was to be rich. The only son of a 
parson’s widow, who had kept herself and him on a 
miserable yearly sum, he had gone to school on a 
scholarship, and experienced all the humiliations that 
come of poverty to a sensitive boy. He was not of 
the stereotyped majority. The headmaster, who could 
recognise a boy with brains when he saw one, was 
disappointed in him and put him down as having no 
ambition. In after years, when Lyddon’s name was 
well-known for its association with one of the greatest 
inventions of modern times, he wondered at the boy’s 
dullness in school. Lyddon left school under a cloud. 
He had a passion for walking, and one half-holiday 
left with another boy younger than himself, and did 


ALLWARD 


39 

not return until two days later, while the country had 
been scoured for him. They had walked over half the 
byways of the county, sleeping under hedges, living 
like tramps. He had been sixteen at the time of this 
escapade, and after his expulsion, began life as an 
electrical engineer. He chose this career for himself. 
Machines were living things to him, and the power 
that lives in the magnet and the lightning had an 
uncanny affinity for him. Yet his true life was always 
lived apart from his work. His love of solitary 
walking, his hatred for the Englishman’s sports, his 
dislike of the petty suburban life which was his 
mother’s world, were innate, inalienable from his per- 
sonality, and his surroundings were always at war 
against his instincts. He went through the work- 
shops, and in the third year of his apprenticeship hap- 
pened upon his first invention. It dropped into his 
hand. He became an inventor by accident rather than 
by temperament. An idea dropped into his mind as a 
seed drops from a passing bird into fertile ground. And 
more because he was lucky than because he had business 
capacity, the goose of fortune began to lay golden eggs 
for him. He was employed by a large firm which 
treated him with honesty and gave him a fair field. 
And then he made a discovery in connection with wire- 
less telegraphy which was eagerly taken over by the 
famous Belloni Syndicate. It was that which made 
him a rich man, it was that which brought the fame for 
which he did not care twopence. At heart he was still 
the same as the boy of sixteen, who had disappeared. 
He was marked out as an eccentric, but as a healthy one 
by those who liked him. 

He was only twenty-two at the time he had sold his 
patent to the Belloni Syndicate, and that was ten 
years ago. He remembered the time when he had 


40 


ALLWARD 


worked at his idea at a lonely wireless station in 
Cornwall, where in the intervals of absorption he had 
walked over every footpath within a twenty-mile radius. 
His work had never obsessed him, neither had its 
commercial value loomed large in his eyes beyond the 
fact that it had provided for his mother and given him 
a freedom which a mere toiling for daily bread had 
denied him. 

And those ten years of success were the bitterest in 
his life, because of the inevitable woman who came 
into his life. His tragedy was that he had married 
her, with her restless ambition, her greed for social 
power, her insistent personality, her power of irritat- 
ing and goading a man in the subtlest way that a 
woman can irritate and goad a man. 

He closed the book of memory abruptly as he 
climbed the road over the moor which reminded him 
of the Dartmoor he loved. The sun had gained 
strength. It was one of those golden days of Febru- 
ary which beguile one into the belief that April is at 
hand and that six weeks of the calendar have been 
dropped. He heard a lark singing, and saw it not so 
far above him fluttering and trilling in rapture 
against a pale blue sky. From the place where he 
stood he could see across heather hills and a watery 
bottom for fifteen miles. A distant shining might or 
might not be the sea. 

Aunt Gerania greeted him on his return to the 
camp. She was engaged in rubbing the brass-work 
of the van, and hailed him with rough good-nature. 
The bushes about were spread with washing, with 
white lace curtains, blouses, aprons, undergarments and 
the like. 

“ Ah,” said she, “ an idle life suits you best, I’ll lay, 
like all the men. Men’s work half the time is sitting 


ALLWARD 


41 


still and smoking, and the rest of their time beating 
their joovels and givin’ them chavis to look after.” 

“ I’ve done plenty of hard work in my time,” he 
replied, meeting the twinkle in her eye. “ You are 
married, I suppose? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” she replied contemptuously. “ I married 

like the rest of ’em, and a lot of good it is to me 

now my man’s living with another joovel down Darset 
way, and the chavis growed up and gone off with men 
of their own. Four pretty gals I had, and they all 
married afore they was seventeen. Two married men 
what’s given up travellin’ and lives in houses. One’s 
a showman, name of Gubbins, ever yeerd of him? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Well, he’s a-made his fortin. But he don’t let 
me see much of it, the raffaly old Gaujo that he is. 
The other’s up ag’in London. Her man’s workin’ 
reg’lar there in some brickfields. They goes hoppin’ 
once in a while.” 

“ And the other two? ” 

“ One bides down at Heavenly Bottom — you knows, 
up near Parkstone. Her husband’s a White, and dels 
in gries, does a bit of harse-dealing, that is. She goes 
into Bournesmouth hawkin’. I shall go down to her 
next wik. But I can’t bear hatchin’ in the same place 
like she do. I must be on the move.” 

“ And the other? Is she prosperous too? ” 

“ She’s a bad gal, she’s broke my heart, she has. 
I don’t know what’s become of her, nor I don’t want 
to. She takes after her father’s folk, all they lot of 
Smith women’s lubbeny — that’s loose in their ways.” 
She spat and renewed her rubbing of the door rail. 
“ There ! That’s how I likes to dikk the old vardo — 
shining so’s you can see your face in the fittings. 
You see I bin up early this maming to do my bit of 


42 


ALLWARD 


washin’. I knawed last night it was goin’ to be fine, 
so I ’lowed I’d do some cleanin’ and washin’.” 

“ Let me lend a hand,” said he. “ I’ll make your 
brass look like gold.” 

“ Your hand ’d be more use in your pocket, I dar 
say,” she retorted unbelievingly. “ And ’ud be more 
useful still if there was summat in the pocket. You 
polish brass ! What can you do, I should like to 
know? Gennlemen like you’s brought up to do 
nothin’. You’d not know how to arn yer mauro if 
you had to. Is there any martel thing you can do 
but shovel out money behind a table? You was in a 
bank, wasn’t you ? ” 

“ Not exactly,” said the impostor, with a smile. “ As 
for earning, I could make clothes-pegs like the rest of 
you.” 

She stopped rubbing and looked at him. 

“ You’d never arn your bread by that. It takes time 
to make the pegs. Every one of ’em goes nine times 
through the hand, and then there’s the tin to get and 
the tacks and the wood to buy. Then you, not being 
married, ’d have to hawk them round yerself, and 
lose a day at the making. And at the end of it all 
you only gets threepence a gross and that’s not a 
fortin. Mary, she’s flick of hand and works quick. 
But she don’t depend on it. Sam’s a rich man for 
all he lives in a tent like theseyer peerdies. He’s one 
of them what lives poor to die rich. D’you know 
what he’ll do with your five-and-twenty bar? ” 

“ What?” 

“ Make fifty or more of ’em. Bars breeds with him. 
He’s like that.” 

“ But how? ” 

“ Harses. Gries. That’s the way. His rat-catchin’ 
brings him in a good bit, but when he’s put it by, 


ALLWARD 


43 


then it’s harses. Then he makes a bit at the races. 
He never loses a penny that I’ve known on. He’s a 
knowing old gairy is Sam.” She gave a chuckle and 
then reverted to her first subject. 

“ Is there anything you can do ? ” 

He remembered his proficiency as an amateur car- 
penter, and mentioned it. 66 And I can manage most 
machinery,” he put in as if in an afterthought. 

She looked dubious. 

“ You might get a carpenter’s job, or you mightn’t. 
Then there’s your tools to buy. You might get Sam 
to lend you the money if you’d the offer of a safe job. 
And as to machinery, there ain’t none yerabouts, unless 
’tis a steam-roller, or a steam-harses at the fairs. Car- 
penterin’s best. Well, that’s somethin’. How did you 
happen to lam that? Look yer ” 

She descended the steps and led him to the side of 
the van. The wooden corners and ends were carved 
into arabesques and brightly painted in yellows and 
reds. “ There’s carpentry for you ! My yold mush 
kered that all by his kukero, and painted it he did, 
too. Two years ago he painted it.” 

“ He hasn’t left you long, then? ” he asked. 

Her hard, handsome face became set and fierce. 
“ No, he hadn’ took up with that lubbeny then. 
Tarned me out of the van, he did, one winter’s night, 
and gave me a hidin’. Times isn’t what they use ter 
be. In the old days if a man had treated his own 
married wife that ways, the whole tribe would have 
scarned him, the dog ! ” She turned with an abrupt 
gesture to the bushes and felt a muslin curtain as if 
to ascertain if it were dry, and then wheeled round as 
suddenly. 

“ Ah, you ain’t married ! ” 

“ I am,” Lyddon said dryly. 


44 


ALLWARD 


“ I lay you wouldn’t treat your wife so.” 

“ My wife,” said Lyddon carefully, “ has left me 
for a long while, so that my views upon matrimony 
scarcely count.” 

“ Ah, then, you knaws a little. No, you don’t, 
neither — for no man keers. ’Tis a woman to lie 
beside, and a woman to do the work, and a woman to 
beat, and one’s so good as another. But a woman 
gets kinder used to her man, even when he do beat her 
at times. Kinder faithful like a dog. And then he 
tarns her out — and uses her like a dog. That’s what 
men is.” 

Lyddon made no reply, and her voice softened as she 
changed the subject. 

66 1 tell you what. I’ll spik to a man I knows up at 
Tharney-hill. He might know of a job of work for 
you. I’ll tell him you got into a bit of trouble. He’ll 
know better nor to open his mui. I’ll say you’re a 
pleasant-spoken, kushti-dikkin young chap. I always 
tauld Sam, 4 Don’t you give him up to the gavmushes, 
he’s done no great harm,’ I says.” 

Remembering previous conversations in the tent, the 
refugee doubted her unbiased partisanship, but he ac- 
cepted it as a token of future good-will. The old 
woman interested him. Both she and Mary were refresh- 
ing to him who was sated with artificiality. 

“ You’re going to have your bit of dinner in with 
me to-day,” Aunt Gerania added with a friendly smile. 
“ Mary said I wuz to look after you and cook you a 
bit. Like to see inside the vardo ? ” 

He accepted the invitation and gazed into the van, 
pleasing her by his admiration of it. 

“ There, you see how comfortable we old didakais 
lives. There’s my stove. That cost a lot of money 
it did, when it was noo. This yer van is nigh on 


ALLWARD 


45 


sixty year old. My father had it built for him and 
then ’twas my brother’s and then when he died it 
come to me. There’s a foty graph of my eldest gal 
Grace, what she had took down in Dover. Kushti- 
dikkin rakli, ain’t she? Pretty teeth she’ve a-got, 
with a parting in the middle, which means she’ll die 
rich, and that’s true enough. She’s got seven by 
now, four boys and three gals. She’s dark. A reg’lar 
Romany she is, favours the Stanleys. The next gal, 
Rosie, ’s fair, a real pretty gal she is, too, but I ain’t 
got no picter of her. There’s my mush. He’s dark, 
ain’t he? A reg’lar kaulo one. His mother was a 
Stanley, a nice old ’ooman, much she’d have to say to 
him now if she was alive.” 

She dwelt on the photograph of her husband, a 
good-looking ruffianly looking fellow, for a minute in 
silence. It was brown and faded, and must have been 
taken many years ago. Looking at her, her visitor 
thought that in spite of her touzled and somewhat 
dirty hair and the hard lines in her face, that man 
and wife must have made a handsome pair in their 
youth. 

44 How do you make your living now ? ” he asked 
her. 

44 Oh, the gals sends me a bit now an’ then, and he 
sends me a bit, and I makes a bit. One old woman 
don’t need a lot of keep. ’Tis the young ones that’s 
breedin’ that costs most.” 

Then she started. 44 Look at thatyer haura ! It’s 
close on twelve, and the pot’s not on the fire yet. You 
wanted a job — you peel they taters,” 


CHAPTER V 


The rat-catcher came back with his terriers at tea- 
time full of genial silence and evident content with 
his day’s work. He admitted to having been to 
Christchurch, and had apparently called in for a 
glass at various public-houses on the way home. 
Mary returned shortly afterwards. She had walked 
to Ringwood, had hawked her pegs all day, and was 
tired. There were dark rings below her pretty eyes 
though she said a man had given her a lift part of 
the way home. 

Her aunt cynically bade her remember that when 
her time came she’d have a chavi to carry round as 
well. 44 That takes the life of you,” she added. “ Got 
to give the chavi the burk as well as carrying him 
and the basket.” 

44 Mary’s delikit,” said the rat-catcher with indul- 
gent pride. 44 Always wuz.” 

44 They’re the ones as gets the most,” said Aunt 
Gerania. 

44 Not me,” said Mary. 44 No mush for me. I’ll kip 
meself.” 

“ That’s right, my dear. So you says. Then comes 
along a nice young chap an’ asks you, and you 
fergits all that. Lordy, you might as well talk to 
thisyer kavvi — * — ” she pointed to the kettle, 44 as get 
sense from a young gal when she’s being coorted by 
a handsome young feller. It’s my belief that the Lord 
sends ’em mad at sich times, otherwise the stock of 
chavis would run out, I’d allow. Then comes the 
46 


ALLWARD 


47 


first chavi. 4 That’s all right,’ she says, and eats it 
up with choomers — that’s kisses, my gennleman, some 
nice Romany gal’ll teach you that — and then another, 
and then another, an’ she knows by then what’s afore 
her. When they’re young they’re arm-achy, and 
when they’re old there’re heart-achy.” 

“ Lordy, Aunt Gerany, how you do talk. You on’y 
had four. Chuck us a bit of bread.” 

“ Six I had, two on ’em died. But look at that poor 
old peerdie in the bushes over thar. She’s just had her 
fifteenth. Nine livin’.” 

“ Who’s that? ” asked the rat-catcher drowsily. 

66 Woman name of Smith. Leonard Smith was her 
husband’s name. You knows well enough. They’re 
makin’ back for Devonsheer. He never married her. 
They lives like dogs.” 

44 Smith? ” Lyddon repeated. 

44 Not the travellin’ Smiths. She’s a gauji woman, 
not even a posh an’ posh. There’s lots of Smiths. 
I’m a Smith, and I was bam a James. My gran’- 
mother on me mother’s side was a Lee, and she mar- 
ried a showman. Ah, there’s no more Lees yer-about 
now. Prapper old style didakais they was. They 
could talk so’s you couldn’t understand ’em.” 

44 So kin I, and so kin you,” said the rat-catcher. 

44 Ah, not like what they could. A lav here an’ there, 
like, but we doesn’t rokker amongst ourselves like what 
they useter.” 

44 1 lay there’s few words I don’t understand,” said 
the rat-catcher, with a touch of sleepy pugnacity. 

44 Well, ’tis no good now,” said Aunt Gerania. 
44 ’Tain’t kep’ to travellers now. There’s that young 
feller what comes here in the van what’s got texes 
painted all over it. He says to me, 4 That’s a vardo, 
ain’t it? ’ 4 1 don’t know, my dear,’ I says; 4 I’m on’y 


48 


ALLWARD 


a traveller.’ I don’t understand that haythenish gib- 
berish. Got it out of a book, he did.” 

“ Leave a woman to talk,” muttered the rat-catcher 
maliciously, with a misty glance at their guest. “No 
wonder her old man left her. Her jib wagged too fast 
for he. Give’s another drop of peeamexy. Not too 
black, my dear, my throat’s dry.” 

“ It hadn’t ought to be,” said Aunt Gerania fiercely. 
She got up and prepared to leave the tent. “ I’ll be 
going back to the waggon, Mary.” 

“ There now, dad, now you’ve druv her off,” said 
Mary reproachfully. “ You knaws she can’t bear any- 
one but herself to speak of Tom.” 

“ her, the ,” said the rat-catcher, “ and Tom 

too. Talk a man’s head off she would ” His head 

nodded forward and he began to drowse. 

Mary cast a glance half humorous, half-philoso- 
phical at him and fed the fire with pieces of stick. 

The square of old carpet that was placed over the 

opening of the tent at night-time or to ensure privacy 
or warmth was thrown back, and the grey naked arms 
of the beech-trees showed above the hollies against 

the pale turquoise of the sky. Something in their 

stateliness and silence made Lyddon think of dumb 
genii, infinitely protective, infinitely remote. He had 
not been listening to all the conversation, but had sat 
still letting his mind drift. The talk of the gypsy- 
people became to him part of the voice of the forest — 
the birds, the woodpecker that flew past with hoarse 
laughter, the chatter of the sparrows in the hollies. 

“ Do you like trees, Mary? ” he asked. 

“ I likes them well enough,” she said with slight 
surprise. 

“ You would miss them if you never saw them? ” 

“ I dar say. I likes the noise they makes of a windy 


ALLWARD 


49 


night. I don’t know as I wouldn’t sooner sleep in a 
tent than in a van. Now my aunt, she thinks tents is 
low. She’ve always slept in a van. She says the shak- 
ing of it in a wind is a thing that’d put her to sleep 
anywheres. It’s bein’ used to it.” 

66 Then you wouldn’t give up your life? ” 

“ Travelling I dunno.” 

“ If you were rich ? ” he asked, testing her. 

But her imagination failed to rise to such a height. 

“ I dunno — — ” 

“ Supposing some one gave you a hundred pounds 
to-morrow, what would you do ? ” 

She thought. “ Buy a bit of ground,” she said, 
“ and a good horse and cart.” 

“ And another hundred? ” 

“ I’d buy a nice dress and long white gloves to go to 
the races, and put a bit on. And some rings and that. 
Yes, and a new accordion.” 

“ Can you play the accordion? I wish you would 
play it to me one day. It’s jolly when it’s played 
well.” 

“ Yes, but not like what dad does. If he wan’t asleep, 
I’d get him to play a tune. He plays for me to dance 
to, now and agen.” 

“ You dance as well — what a lot of accomplish- 
ments.” i ' V J 

The wide, pretty, distrustful smile flashed into her 
face. 

“ Where did you learn to read ? ” 

“ Up at the school. Tharneyhill.” 

“ But if you were travelling all the time ? ” 

“ I bides up there, sometimes.” 

There was a silence. 

He looked at her as she stood outlined against the 
growing dusk. Though she was hardly more than a 


50 


ALLWARD 


child, her bosom had a full swelling outline that 
gave promise of fruitful maternity in the days of 
servitude to come. She bent and broke a lichen- 
covered bough, dead and brittle, against her knee, and 
threw it bit by bit into the blaze. Her eyes were 
wistful and mysterious with the mystery of young 
womanhood. 

“ What are you thinking of? ” he asked after a 
pause. He felt it almost an indelicacy to ask her. 
What right had he, a man and a stranger, to probe 
her thought, or that vague quiescence which lies deeper 
than thought? 

“Me ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I don’t rightly know. I might’ve been think- 
in’ I’d fry some taters in with the sausages I bro’t 
home.” 

“ Oh. It sounds savoury,” said their guest, recover- 
ing himself. 

“ I likes sausages,” she said, with dreamy beauty in 
her eyes. 

“ They are always associated with Sunday morning 
for me,” he replied, with a smile. 

“ Why? ” 

“ In one place where I lived before I married, the 
woman who cooked for me thought it against Sabba- 
tarian principle to give me anything else for breakfast 
on Sunday.” 

“You married?” she asked curiously. “Yes, I 
remembers now, that bit of paper said there was a 
Mrs. Allward. I some’ow thought it was yer mother. 
Any kids ? ” 

“ No,” he said. 

“Oh. Won’t she wonder where you’ve a-got to?” 

Lyddon’s long-featured, pleasant face hardened and 


ALLWARD 51 

then relaxed. “ Possibly,” he said with an odd smile 
coming into his green-brown eyes. 

“ You should write her a word,” said Mary judici- 
ally, after thought. “ ’Tain’t fair on a woman to let 
her think you’se drownded or somethin’. That’s just like 
men. On’y thinks of themselves.” 

“ H’m,” said he lightly. “ What’s the time? ” 

She looked mischievous. “ That’s like dad. When 
you wants he to do anything what he don’t want to do, 
he begins to talk of the weather.” 

“ Well, we will talk of the weather,” said he coolly, 
accepting a cigarette which she had rolled for him with 
her brown fingers. 

“ It’s goin’ to be fine,” said Mary, sniffing the air. 

“ Let’s hear how you know,” he said, smiling at her 
air of confidence. 

“ Smoke’s goin’ up straight. Then it smells that 
way. Wind’s a-blowin’ from the right place. Birds 
sings like it. It’ll keep fine for a day or so.” She 
threw another piece of stick into the blaze. “ Lot of 
good it’ll do me to-morrer. Can’t even get a bit of 
washin’ done.” 

“ Why on earth can’t you ? ” 

“ Sunday. Can’t go about hawkin’ or wash of a 
Sunday. Lots of ’em does, but we never does a thing 
of a Sunday.” She broke off. “ I yeerd somethin’ 
to-day in Ringwood. Shall I tell you? ” 

“ Yes, please do,” he said, watching her with the 
kind of interest that a man feels for something uncon- 
scious and young and natural. 

“ They said ’twas in the paper Adam Allward ’ad 
got off to South America. So they got off your 
track.” 

“ That’s lucky,” he replied with the shadow of a 
smile. 


52 


ALLWARD 


“ What I says. But what’re they after you for? I 
don’t sim to understand rightly.” 

He tried to explain to her in simple language the 
wrong which the man he was impersonating had com- 
mitted. It was rather difficult to make her unsophis- 
ticated mind grasp what he meant, but he succeeded 
partially, for she said presently — 

44 Same’s as if I was to give you a shilling to kip for 
me and you wuz to put it on a gry at the races.” 

44 Exactly.” 

44 But if you’d a-won they’d ’av got back their money 
safe enough.” 

44 Of course.” 

44 Well, I don’t see as that were a thing to go to 
prison for if you meant honest. If I wanted to put 
a koruna on a harse and hadn’t but three of my own 
and two of yourn, I’d risk the five, and if I’d lost I’d 
make it up to you birneby. But law’s a funny thing. 
It don’t give you no time like.” 

44 It’s a dangerous game,” said he. 

44 So’s most games as is worth anything. Bettin’s 
dangerous, but you often makes a bit by it.” 

44 But dishonesty ” 

44 Who was talkin’ of dishonesty? No, I said if you 
meant honest.” 

She fell into a reverie, holding her knees, and swing- 
ing herself backwards. 

44 There’s all sarts of honesty in the world,” she. 
said after a moment. 44 See how big thisyer forest is. 
Well, it all belongs to the King they say. He don’t 
use it, I don’t know as ever he come down yer. We 
lives in it, and we knaws the ways of it, and the 
creeturs in it, and yet if a keeper was to find me 
a-settin’ of a trap for a rabbit, he’d lei me, and I’d 
git a fortnight. Does the King eat any of they 


ALLWARD 


53 


rabbits? No. ’Cos why? He has too much to eat 
as ’tis. And yet he begurtches us ours. I don’t 
say we set traps. Anyways not often. There’s other 
ways of catching a shushy if you knows them. And 
then look at pheasants’ eggs. They gennlemen what 
comes to shoot the pheasants don’t want ’em like what 
we do, yet we darsen’t touch an egg or a feather. 
We gets lelled for it all the same. There’s Jeffry 
Whicher, what married dad’s cousin. He’s a tra- 
vellin’ sweep. He was campin’ down Beaulieu Rails 
once when a constable name of Jim Reece come along 
with a gennleman and a keeper. Jeffry just got back, 
and his wife was out hawkin’. 4 I’ll show you whar 
your pheasant eggs goes to, sir,’ says Jim Reece, 
and he says to Jeffry, 4 You hand out they eggs.’ 4 1 
an’t got no eggs,’ says Jeffry; 4 1 bin out sweepin’ all 
day, and the missis is out with her basket.’ Jim Reece 
says, 4 None of they lies to me,’ and he goes to the 
earner, and there, under a bit of something, was a dozen 
eggs. He knew where to find them, ’cos why? he’d put 
them there hisself.” 

44 But why should he do that ? ” 

44 Wanted to get hisself made Inspector. Poor Jeffry, 
what wouldn’t take a ha’penny if you dropped it in 
the road, got a month for that. Oh, Reece is bad. 
He’s sarved other travellers the same ways. Who’d 
take a traveller’s word against his, look? Why, once 
he went to a pub. Two respectable travellers was 
there. They had their pint and went off. What does 
Reece do? There’s a mug the landlord was proud 
on, some old valyable stuff it was. He slips it under 
his coat, goes out and throws it over the hedge. Then 
he runs after the poor didakais and says, 4 Yer, you 
bin throwed a mug over the hedge, you come back 
and pay for it.’ They come quite willin’, thinkin’ 


54 


ALLWARD 


there was some mistake. 4 We didn’t throw no mug,’ 
they says. 4 Ho, didn’t you? I seen you,’ he says, 
and there ’twas, and off to the lock-up they goes. 
And Reece gets ’em sayin’ what a smart feller he is. 
’Twud sarve he right if some one was to do he in one 
of these days.” 

44 What a confounded shame,” exclaimed Lyddon. 
44 Do you mean to tell me that a village police- 
man can be such a swine as that and not be found 
out? ” 

44 You ask dad, or Aunt Gerany, or any one. They’ll 
tell you.” 

44 If I caught a man at such a dirty trick, I’d horse- 
whip him.” 

44 Ah, but we’d get months for doin’ that,” she said, 
sighing. 

Within the tent the old rat-catcher snored gently. 

The noise reminded her of the realities of the 
present. 

44 1 must cook they sausages,” she said. 44 And there’s 
cups to wash.” 

44 I’ll do that. Where’s the water ? ” 

44 There on’y a drop, and I needs most of that. Take 
a swab of grass. D’you know I often thinks that 
life’s all spent in cleanin’ and dirty in’ again? You 
cleans a thing just so that it shall get dirty again, over 
and over again. And when it ain’t wuth cleanin’, you 
throws it away.” 

44 Perhaps you are stating a philosophical truth,” said 
the alien half to himself. 

44 Men don’t know much about cleanin’,” she added. 
44 They leaves all that to we. A man’s always dirty- 
ing, a woman’s always cleanin’. That’s one thing 
I’m glad we’ve no van. There’s lots of cleanin’ about 
a van if you wants to keep it nice — the stove to 


ALLWARD 55 

black, the chimney to brush out, the brass to shine, and 
the place to sweep out and tidy ” 

“ I have heard of a philosopher — a man — who lived 
in a hut,” said Lyddon. “ He brought home a pretty 
pebble that he’d found on his rambles. But one day 
he found it dusty, and then he threw it away — it was 
only one more thing to dust.” 

“ He hadn’t got no wife then,” she observed, “ or 
he’d a-kept it and made her dust it. Now in a tent you 
has just what you can’t do without, and that’s less nor 
you would think, not bein’ used to it.” 

She went to her basket, which she had deposited in 
one of the carts, and taking from it a bag containing 
some sausages, soon had them frizzling over the fire, 
becoming stiff, brown and succulent. 

Out of the darkness came three barefoot and un- 
kempt children, and stared wistfully at the operations. 
Mary set their guest to hold the pan, while she cut off 
three large slices of bread, dipped them in the sizzling, 
spitting grease, and put them in the hands outstretched 
for them. 

Like wild sprites of the wood, the children took the 
gift without thanks, and disappeared into the darkness 
among the holly bushes. 


CHAPTER VI 


The runaway awoke to the fresh, happy din of 
song-birds, as he had slept overnight to the calling 
of owls. Twittering, sweeting, fluting, calling, trill- 
ing, it was a tumult of happy, planless sound. Just 
above his head, almost in the tent, as it seemed, came 
the liquid whistling of a blackbird, and from its proximity 
the predominant songster in that ecstatic chorus. The 
man stirred, one of the rods which supported his tent 
was shaken, and there was a whirring of wings so 
close that he guessed the bird had been perched 
on the little edifice itself. He pulled himself up, drew 
aside one of the brown and smoky blankets wdiich 
were his shelter, and looked out. The glossy leaves 
of the holly reflected light, a silver mist of sunshine 
lay upon the trees beyond, the wet grass and heather 
was veiled with a grey and shining cobweb, in which 
thousands of tiny drops shone yellow, white and 
blue. 

“ Here’s spring,” thought Lyddon, with a quickening 
of the pulses, “ and it’s only February.” 

If he had been in London, in that house which 
for him had been a prison and a torture-house, the 
blinds would still have been drawn. He, because of 
his instinct, the instinct that made every spring fret 
his spirit with longing to be away, would have known 
that somewhere birds were singing and the catkins 
full of pollen, but for the men and women he met it 
would have been merely a bright day and that is all. 
Who would know that spring had come at all in 
56 


ALLWARD 


57 


London but for the flower-sellers and the milliners? 
And it does not come a day before April, though the 
carefully planted crocuses in the parks bloom to the 
noise of motor buses. But in the country it heralds 
itself in January even. To-day, but for the leafless 
trees, it might have been May. A wisp of wood smoke 
drifted across the hollies towards him, smelling pun- 
gent and sweet. He washed himself in a drop of water 
with which he had been careful to provide himself over- 
night, dressed and went out, disturbing a couple of 
chaffinches who were disputing some crumbs and scraps 
they had found. 

To-day there was no stir in their little camp as yet. 
The smoke which he had smelt must have come from 
elsewhere, but he did not trouble to trace it. He 
walked on, filled with an exhilaration which drew him 
to the open moor beyond the belt of hollies, the wind- 
less uplands stretching away to the shining of the sea 
behind Bournemouth. 

But as he went he chanced upon squatters earlier 
abroad than himself. It was from their camp that 
the smoke had proceeded, for thick blue clouds were 
going up from a just-lit fire outside the tent. The 
tent was not the usual gypsy erection, but a tarpaulin 
cover, neatly stitched into shape, like the covers one 
sees over life-boats on board a steamer. A man was 
coaxing the wet wmod to burn, a woman stood beside 
him suckling a child. 

The man looked up from his labours, saw him paus- 
ing, and called out a brief “ Marning.” 

The woman, who was plain and shabby, gazed up for 
an instant incuriously. 

“ Have you got such a thing as a match about 
you? 99 called out the man. “ I spent all I had on this 
b fire.” 


58 


ALLWARD 


Lyddon felt in his pockets mechanically, and found 
a silver vesta-box in his trousers’ pocket. He prof- 
fered a vesta to the tramp, who muttered thanks and 
lit a pipe, casting a look of curiosity on the box. 

44 Why, that’s silver, ain’t it, matey? ” 

44 1 think so.” He eyed the tent. 44 That’s an 
odd-looking construction you’ve got there, isn’t 
it? ” 

44 Ah, I see you starin’ at it t Lots of travellers have 
looked at that and asked me where I got it. See 
them eyelet holes? We can draw it tight to on a cold 
night. Better nor they gypsy ragbags, ain’t it? Got 
it from a man down Romsey way. You down on your 
luck? ” 

44 It depends what you call luck,” said Lyddon. 

44 Ah, you’re right there,” said the man. 44 What’s 
luck to a rabbit is pizen to a fox, often enough.” 

He cast a cunning look at the stranger. 

44 Not been on the roads long, I can see. Well, 
there’s many worse lives. I was born respectable. 
My father was a grocer down in Christchurch. But 
I wouldn’t go back to house-dwellin’ now if you was 
to pay me handsome. My old woman there, she was 
barn and bred on the roads. But I larnt her a thing 
or two. She wouldn’t ever have thought of a tent 
like this. They sticks to their bits of rags and thorns. 
Now what they spends on a donkey and cart, I spends 
on this tent. A handcart’s good enough for us. My 
old woman and me’s the donkeys. But we sleeps water- 
tight and snug.” 

Lyddon assented, bade them good-morning and 
moved on. He did not take to the man, he was loud- 
voiced and bombastic, his eye was shifty and beery. 
The woman, poor, draggled creature, looked brow- 
beaten. 


ALLWARD 


59 


“ Thank you, sir,” she called out, as Lyddon turned 
away. He took the little piece of servility as a covert 
and pathetic plea, and regretted that his pockets were 
as bare as theirs, barer, probably. What curious twist 
in this man’s disposition had led him away from the 
paths of prosperity to the ways of roving and freedom 
and cleanliness, he wondered, and resolved to ask Mary 
about them. 

The sun was warm on his back, and he got out 
on to the road which connected with the main road 
across the heath, then walked briskly uphill. Larks 
were singing, and his keen ears detected a faint 
and monotonous ding-ding far away that told him 
that somewhere bells were sounding for an early 
service. He strode on, his heart young within him. 
Was it possible that he could be the same man who 
had felt nausea and revolt that day when he had 
sat in the high, square chamber of horrors in the 
Law Courts but a little while ago? Ten years of 
falsehood and suppression had dropped from him. 
By one mad impulse towards freedom, he had leapt 
through the tiny ropes which had gradually woven 
themselves about him in ten foolish years. He was 
free. 

Suddenly came a singing, whirring, steady sound. 
He stopped as if held to the earth by some fascina- 
tion. Five great birds were winging their way 
steadily across the luminous blue of the pale spring 
sky. The sun shone on their wings and breasts, and 
as they came nearer he saw that they were white 
swans, their long necks stretched out, their bodies 
flattened, their great wings singing rhythmically, a 
mighty sound with something royal in it. He 
watched them fly over the heath in a straight line, 
crossing the heath-clad hills, fly over the long, brown, 


60 


ALLWARD 


boggy valley and on towards the blue distance and 
the marshes beyond. As one gazes at an aeroplane 
till the last faint speck fades against the sky, so 
he gazed until they passed out of sight, tirelessly 
flying. 

As he turned from watching them, he saw a one- 
legged man approaching up the hill. His head was 
bent, and from time to time he stopped and prodded 
at the dust of the ditch by the roadside with his 
wooden leg as a man does who is looking for some not 
very large object lost in the road. 

“ Are you looking for anything? ” Lyddon asked. 

The old man started. 

“ Have’ee found it? ” 

“ What? ” 

“ A little red bag? Not seen such a thing, 
have’ee? ” 

“ No.” 

“ ’Twould be worth a shillin’ to ’ee if you had,” 
said the old man stolidly. “ There’s no value to ’em 
if you comes to that, look. But no more there is to 
a heap of things what people hunts out and puts in 
glass cases. But there was one in that bag what I’d 
be sorry to lose. Napoleon to the very life. The 
very daps of ’n, cocked hat an’ hunched shoulders and 
all.” 

“ But what was it? ” Lyddon asked. 

“ A stone, a common stone what I found in the 
road. Ah, you didn’t expect that, young feller, I 
can see. All the times you’ve walked the roads, 
you’ve never troubled to look what lay there right 
at your feet. I on’y met one as ever did, and he was 
a stone-breaker — found one shaped just like a baby, 
he did and he kept it up on his mantelshelf. Nature 
is a wonderful thing, for them as has eyes to see. 


ALLWARD 


61 

Nature can beat the sculptors with the leastest trouble 
in the world. You look here ! ” He fumbled at an 
inside pocket and produced a small bag with the 
words 44 National Provincial Bank ” upon it. This 
he untied, and took from it a small, irregularly shaped 
pebble, which he placed in the other’s hand. 

41 4 What’s that? ” he asked triumphantly. 4 4 Hold it 
up against the light — not like that, sideways. What 
d’you see? ” 

44 It is like a face,” said Lyddon, humouring him and 
taken with his madness. 

44 A face, aye but whose face? I’ve thought many 
times of sendin’ it as a present to her grandson, but 
I couldn’t bring myself to part with it. Look again 
— why, you must be blind! ’Tis her gracious Majesty 
Queen Victoria, as in life she was, poor lady. I 
warr’nt the King’d like that. Here’s another. Who’s 
this then? ” 

44 Gladstone? ” hazarded the other. 

44 Right. You must have had some eddication in 
your day. You couldn’t miss that nose, could you — 
a very noble nose. And, talkin’ of noses, who’s 
this ? ” 

44 Cyrano de Bergerac? ” answered Lyddon, without 
thinking. 

44 Never heard of him. Ally Sloper! Thought 
you’d have seen that. Well, I can see you weren’t 
brought up to be what you’ve become now. Here’s 
the price of a drink for you — where’s your hand, 
then? There, if you sees that bag, bring it for me 
to the little pub up on the hill a mile further on. 
If you say it’s for Jimmy Green, they’ll know. I 
must have dropped it through a hole in my coat- 
pocket as I came back last night from seeing my married 
darter down there at Burley Street.” 


ALLWARD 


To receive a gratuity is always an experience which 
disconcerts those who have never had money dropped 
into their palms since the days of nephewhood. The 
recipient of the stone-finder’s twopence was still 
petrified, his hand unclosed, while the one-legged 
man, with a nod and a 44 Good-day to you,” began his 
slow progress up the hill in search of the missing 
treasure. Then the younger man’s fingers closed 
over the coins. How instinctive had been the cling- 
ing to a convention which divides all mankind into those 
who tip and those who receive tips ! 

He turned at length to go back. It was, in truth, 
a lovely day, and the mist had cleared a little out of 
the valley already, leaving purple shadows, which 
gathered the blue plum-dust of distance as they 
stretched toward the bright sea. His legs were full 
of the joy of walking, the road was an invitation. A 
whimsical idea came to him that the reason why 
nomad peoples always moved westward was because, 
when they started out at break of day with their 
caravan, the colours and contours which met the eye 
in the west were more attractive than the view to the- 
east in the eye of the sun, for the blaze of light 
destroys colour and form. A man instinctively travels 
with his back to the sun, and during the first and 
energetic portion of the day, Nature spreads her 
allurements in the west — the charm of blue hills and 
enamelled vales, of exquisite skies and glittering 
mirages. 

It was the call of hunger that drew him back to the 
camp, however, and a savoury smell told him that the 
women were cooking. 

44 It’s Sunday,” said Mary, 44 and a man down Ring- 
wood let me have two pair of kippers cheap. Other 
days we does with bread and tea.” 


ALLWARD 


63 


“ And don’t want more’n that now,” growled the 
rat-catcher, who had slept later than usual and 
was feeling the effect of his potations of the night 
before. 

“ Three ’apence a pair, they was, and I got ’em 
from ’im at a penny a pair. You needn’t eat yours if 
you doesn’t want to, dad. He wouldn’t have give them 
to you so cheap. He always gives ’em to me a bit off 
because of me danyors.” 

“ Of your what ? ” asked their guest. 

She indicated two rows of pretty white teeth. 

“ These.” 

“What call’ve you got to go savvin at ’im? ” asked 
her father sullenly. “ If I catches you at it you’ll get 
a hidin’.” 

“ There ain’t no harm in smilin’, Adam, now is 
there? ” she asked placidly. “ ’Tis better nor cryin’, 
now isn’t it? I smiles at everybody on some days. 
Can’t help it like. Smiles to myself as I jals along the 
drum.” 

“ ’Tis health, more’n happiness,” said Aunt Gerania, 
who had finished her kipper and was filling her cutty with 
shag. “ I used to be the same when I was a bit of a 
rakli like you. You won’t sav so easy when you’re 
rummered.” 

Mary looked at Lyddon with a look which said, “ She 
is on the old subject.” 

But even Aunt Gerania’s misanthropy was warmed by 
the sun. 

“ But there, there’s all sorts of folk to the world, 
and you may be luckier nor most. As for what I 
was sayin’, health’s a wonderful thing. I can’t think 
what folks what lives in houses ever does to keep 
their selves out of sick-beds. They sits indoors rain 
or shine, and kills theirselves with kindness. I never 


64 


ALLWARD 


had a drop of physic all my barn days, not in all my 
meriben. What do it put on the bottles? Something 
about on’y takin’ one spoonful. There now — that proves 
it to be pizen — if you drank the lot ’twould kill you as 
like as not. The word in Romany talk for medicine’s 
4 drab,’ my gennleman, and drab’s likewise the lay for 
pizen, and a doctor in our talk’s a drabengro, which 
isn’t nothing else but a pizener.” 

44 Did you ever yeer old Noah Lee tell the story of 
what happened to his grandfather? ” asked the rat- 
catcher. 

“ I don’t know as I ever did,” said Aunt 
Gerania. 

44 Well, they was camped up on a girt moor up 
somewhar’s north, some place as I never been to. 
And Noah’s grandfather was a young man then, so 
by his tellin’ it must’ve bin over a hundred year ago, 
more like two hundred, I’d allow. Noah’s grand- 
father was married to a pretty gal name of Cooper, 
a reg’lar Romany raunie, she wur, with bal as kaulo 
as the night, and a girt silver necklace around her 
pretty little neck. But she was naflo. A sart of fiery 
sickness, ’twas, and he was half divvy because he 
thought she might die. He rode ten mile to the 
doctor’s house, but doctor had gone to dikk a woman 
what was brought to bed somewheres, half-way be- 
tween the place where they was at chin’ and the 
doctor’s house. They telled him exactly whar the 
doctor would come along the road, and that he’d be 
drivin’, and sure enough down that road come a harse 
and trap, the only one he’d seen in ten miles. 4 ’Tis 
the drabengro,’ says Noah’s grandfather, and he 
stopped him, and pootchered ’n civil to come and look 
at his wife. 

44 4 I’m not the doctor,’ says the man. Noah’s 


ALLWARD 


65 


grandfather thought he was telling lies to get out 
of cornin’. Doctors often don’t fancy cornin’ to a 
camp. 

“ ‘ I’ll give you a bar,’ says Noah’s grandfather. 

“ 4 Damn yer bars,’ says he, and tries to drive on. 
But Noah’s grandfather’s blood was up, and he got 
hold of the hoss’s head and farced him to get down. 
He had a gun I’d allow. Anyways, he farced the man 
to ride on the mare’s back with him over the 
moor to whar they was atchin’. The man was fright- 
ened almost to death, and thought he’d be mored for 
certain. Noah gets him down, and takes him into 
the vurdo where his joovel was lying. ‘You give 
her some physic, what’ll cure her,’ says he, ‘ or you’ll 
get a harse-whipping.’ The man said he wasn’t no 
doctor and he hadn’t no physic. Noah’s grand- 
father still thinks it all lies, and told him to make 
some, somehow. So the man began to think he was 
mad, and to get out of it he said, ‘ Very well,’ he said, 
6 leave me here alone with her five minutes and I’ll 
make up some pills,’ he said. Sure enough, when 
the door opened after a bit, there he had some pills. 
Queer-lookin’ things they was, too. ‘ Give her two 
to-night,’ he says, ‘ and I’ll send you more in the 
maming.’ Noah gave him the bar, and took him 
back to where his boss an’ cart was drawed up by 
the road, and let him go. Sure enough, his wife took 
a turn that night for the better. Next marning up 
rides another man. ‘ I’m the doctor,’ said he, 
‘where’s yer wife?’ ‘But who was it last night?’ 
says Noah, lookin’ dazed. ‘ That was a friend of 
mine,’ says the drabengro, laughing. ‘ He says you 
handled him pretty rough, and gave him a guinea for 
it.’ ‘ But the medicine,’ says Noah’s grandfather. 

‘ He made they pills,’ says the drabengro, ‘ out of a 


66 


ALLWARD 


little soap and salt what he found in the cupboard in 
the van. They won’t hurt your wife,’ he says. No 
more they did. Noah says his grandfather always said 
’twas they soap pills what put her right. But he was 
prapper angry, all the same.” 

“ Hark to that fly a-buzzing,” said Mary, when the 
tale was done. “ One’d think we was near summer. 
What luck’ve you had to-day, Adam? You was up 
afore all of us.” 

Lyddon put his hand into his pocket and produced 
twopence triumphantly. 

“ Who gave } r ou that ? ” asked Aunt Gerania. 

“ A man who calls himself Jimmy Green.” He told 
them of his adventure with the stone-collector. 

“ I knaws him,” said the rat-catcher, sending out a 
cloud of smoke. “ A crazy old chap what’s always 
digging about for stones. He used to be a publican 
down Fardingbridge way, and made his bit of money 
and come back to live here where he was barn. All 
the road-menders for miles around do know he. A 
pile of stones in the road’ll keep he busy for hours. 
If you’d a-found that bag, now, it’d a-amed you a 
shilling.” 

“ I warr’nt I’d a-got more’n twopence out of him, 
anyways,” said Aunt Gerania. “ A man’s never no 
good at dra’in’ the money out of the pocket. I’ve a 
mind to goo up there on the drum now and use me 
yokkers a bit and see if I can’t dikk that old kissi of 
his. Anyway, I might meet him, and ask him civil if 
he’s found it yet.” 

“You’ll lose your time,” said the rat-catcher. 
“ I’m off to cut some fuzz-tops. Mary, you’ll have 
to fetch some sticks presently. This lot’s near 
done.” 

“ I’ll get some wood,” said Lyddon. 


ALLWARD 


67 


c * Then I’ll come with you an’ help you,” said Mary. 
“ There’s no wood round yer, we shall have to go a mile 
or two for it.” 

He wandered about among the trees until she 
appeared. He had never had much to do with women, 
except with the one who had been the curse of ten 
years of his life, not because she had been a luridly 
bad woman, but because she was herself. Marjorie 
Lyddon was socially ambitious. She had the super- 
ficial charms of easy conversation, seeming sympathy, 
culture and good breeding. In marrying Lyddon, 
however, she had known by the parasitical instinct 
which is inborn in some women, that she was attach- 
ing herself to a man who must make his way. He 
was introduced to her as a genius. She was resolved 
that he should be a successful genius, that he should 
be what she and her friends called “ a brilliant man.” 
She adored success, and she saw nascent success in 
Lyddon. 

She also saw that if he were allowed to please him- 
self, he would let himself be forgotten. He must 
meet people, important people, influential people. He 
must not let people forget that he was the Lyddon whose 
brains had helped to furnish the world with what was 
almost a sixth sense, a new dimension. She fought 
his love of solitude, his preference for country life, 
his lack of ambition, with the real cleverness which 
she possessed. She manoeuvred him into contracts 
which would keep him working, producing and 

chained to the fruits of his success. If Lyddon had 

been a weaker man, she would have succeeded. But 

he evaded her, and constantly evaded her. His work 
might keep him chained, but she soon found that the 
social life in which she attempted to enmesh him 


68 


ALLWARD 


could not hold him. Neither could his amusements. 
He gained a reputation for eccentricity, for unsocia- 
bility. To escape from London, not by motor-car, 
but to some distant station from which he could ride 
or go afoot, was a frequent employment of his week- 
ends. She could never succeed but partially with this 
big, odd genius of a husband of hers. At best he was 
a leashed kestrel, with his eyes fixed on freedom. 
Of the chain she was at least sure. There was no 
man to fill his place, and while a man is useful he 
is not allowed to drop out. His very success, his very 
name, were chains about his feet. He was the property 
of the Belloni Syndicate. 

Lyddon disliked the would-be society woman, he 
was bored by the middle-class woman, and in any 
case had as little to do with women as possible. He 
often thought of his marriage now as something which 
had happened to some one that was not himself. Yet 
he had changed little from the shy, clever boy who 
had made his own maps of three counties, marking 
the footpaths that he loved, the swamps that were 
fordable, the ways that avoided the dwellings of men. 
His love of wandering had never taken him out of 
England. It was the English hedgerows and coppices 
and downs that he loved. The happiest time of his 
life was the time he had spent in that lonely wireless 
station in Cornwall. 

Then lately had come the beginning of the end, and 
the misery and vulgarity of it was still with him. He 
was one of those men to whom publicity is absolutely 
abhorrent. Yet publicity of the most sordid kind 
had been turned upon their case, upon his private life, 
upon hers, upon people he would have cut off his little 
finger to save from annoyance. 

Mary joined him, and they began to walk up past 


ALLWARD 69 

the camp together. She glanced at him with a glance 
that was half-shy. 

“ Didn’t you want to come ? ” 

“ Why, yes,” he said absently. “ Why? ” 

££ You was frowning.” 

He met her soft brown eyes with a quick look of 
apology. ££ Was I? Perhaps I was seeing ghosts.” 

Her face illuminated, she thought he was jesting with 
her. 

“ Shall I tell you what I was really thinking? ” he 
said. 

“ Yes.” She was serious again. 

“ I’d never known people like you before, and after 
all the talk there is about the way to get all that’s 
good out of life, you and your people seem to have 
hit upon the very best — and without talking of it 
either.” 

She looked at him doubtfully. 

“ It’s no life for you,” she said. “ We lives that 
way because we are barn to it and has to put up with 
it. You likes it because you’ve only tried it a little 
while. I often thinks I’d like to be a reg’lar lady and do 
nothin’ at all.” 

“ But you make a mistake,” said Lyddon. “ They 
work hard.” 

She smiled incredulity. 

“ They does what they likes to do,” she per- 
sisted. 

“ On the contrary,” said Lyddon, “ they so often do 
what they don’t want to do that they end by forgetting 
what they want to do. They’ve no real wants. They’ve 
crowded them out.” 

“ Get on,” she said incredulously. ££ You’re talkin’ 
clever, and you know I don’t like that. I specks 
there’s not much difference, if you comes to that. 


70 


ALLWARD 


They got a lot to choose from, I got a little. Lord, I 
wishes I had some money.” 

“ To buy the bit of ground and the accordion ? ” he 
asked. 

“ I don’t mean that ways. I’d like to have some one 
to do the cleanin’ and cookin’ for a bit. I’d like to 
go to one of they swell hotels and sit there with a 
grand dress on me back and ride in a carriage. One 
of they Stanley girls did once. Married a real rye 
with lots of money. But she didn’t have no more to 
do with her folks but once, and that was at the races 
somewheres. There she wuz, sat up in a coach with a 
hat all covered with feathers and a silk dress on her, 
not like our sart of dresses, but just like a real raunie, 
and she drinkin’ and eatin’ with the rest of the ryes 
and rauniesi. And suddenly she looked and saw a 
lot of our folk all together making a bit of peass in a 
earner by themselves. Laughin’ and dancin’ they 
was, owin’ to havin’ won a lot on a gry. And she 
jumped up and left the coach and jined in with her 
own folk, and her husband didn’t find her till the end 
of the day. And then she was half morto (drunk). 
’Twas a kind of home-sickness as much as the levina 
what she’d a-peed, and when she saw him she swore 
everything she could lay her tongue to. But he didn’t 
mind. He sat down and had a drop of levina too, 
quite civil, and then when he got her home, they say, 
he koored her black and blue. But they was fond on 
each other, they was. He was a queer kind of gennle- 
man, look, and knawed all sarts of furrin languages.” 

“ When was this?” 

“ Oh, a long time ago. When Aunt Gerany was a 
bit of a thing her mother’d a-told her.” 

“ Could you like a man who beat you black and 
blue ? ” 


ALLWARD 


71 


She reflected. “ P’raps,” she said. 

“ Are all women like that? ” 

“ I dunno.” 

“ Has any one ever beaten you? ” 

“ Dad’ve given me a hidin’ lots of times,” she said, 
with no change of expression. 

He looked at her with a strange feeling that was 
not all horror, but wonder tinged with the fascination 
which brutal facts have for those who are not brutal. 
She, fine, young, straight-limbed creature, with those 
soft eyes, to be beaten — she, so essentially feminine. 
She caught his gaze and laughed. 

“ Well, you do look at me funny,” she said, jerking 
her ear-rings back as she pushed her untidy hair out of 
her eyes. 

“ I was wondering what it would feel like to have 
beaten some one you were fond of. I’ve beaten a dog 
I loved better than any human being — but couldn’t beat 
a woman.” 

“ Then some would get the better of you,” she 
replied. “ They do say as Aunt Gerany took a whip 
to her man once. But that was when she was young. 
She hasn’t the strength to stand up against he now, 
and he’ve a-koored her enough to make up for that 
whippin’, I’d allow. But he’s bad, and so’s that old 
joovel he’ve a-took up with.” 

“ I wonder what sort of man you’ll marry,” said he. 

“ I dunno,” she answered expressionlessly. 

They had reached a wood overhanging the great 
valley which runs from Ringwood to Christchurch, 
near the high point where in olden times beacons 
were lighted. The fox-red floor, with patches of moss 
like green plush, was knotted here and there with 
roots; the trees were far smaller than the giants of 
Verely, for they had been dwarfed by the unbroken 


72 ALLWARD 

force of many gales. Through their trunks the valley 
shone like a vision. 

Collecting the grey, fallen wood, hither and thither 
they wandered, calling to each other from time to time, 
their voices echoing. A couple of black swine went 
grunting through the trees, nosing among the beech- 
mast for something edible. Otherwise they were dis- 
turbed by no other living thing. In half-an-hour they 
had collected two large bundles, which they secured 
with the rope they had brought. 

“ How hot it is,” said Mary. “ Who’d think it was 
winter? I’m sweatin’.” 

“ Then rest a little before we go back,” he suggested. 

“ If you likes,” she assented, and by a common 
impulse they walked to the brow of gorse and heather. 
Here, out of the wind, it was sunny and fresh. The 
evergreen of the hollies, the yellow furze and the 
withered brown of the heather told little of the season. 
Below them, bright with the sun, stretched the same 
long, watery bottom, across which the swans had 
flown in the morning. Mary flung herself full- 
length in the heather and supported her chin in her 
hands. 

“ How the larks do sing,” said she. If this weather 
holds, there’ll be plovers’s eggs afore long.” 

He sat down beside her, and she altered her position 
a little to make room for him between two dwarf gorse 
bushes. He watched her small, silver-ringed hands 
breaking off* pieces of brittle heather and crumbling off 
the withered buds. 

“ Still hot? ” he asked her. 

“ Yes, ain’t you? My blood’s always warm. The 
leastest thing do make me sweat.” She spoke dreamily 
with the same peculiarly gentle beauty in her face 
which had drawn him before, and robbed her words 


ALLWARD 


73 

of their coarseness. “Nice here, ain’t it?” she went 
on, and then, after a pause, she added, “I likes the 
spring, though some’ow, I don’t know why, it kind 
of makes you sad-and-silly feelin’. Makes you 
want things, and you don’t know what ’tis you’re 
wantin’.” 

He was surprised at her sudden mood of introspec- 
tion and self-revelation. 

“ You feel that? ” he said. 

“ It makes you feel kind of old,” she said, fixing her 
brown eyes on some point beyond the sunny mist of 
the distance. “ Eggs a-hatchin’, leaves cornin’ out, 
and young, new creeturs everywhere, and you the same 
silly old thing that you was in the winter, and the 
year afore. Seems funny, don’t it, if you think of it 
that ways ? ” 

“ It doesn’t seem funny to me at all,” he returned, 
gazing, too, at the hills painted thin against the 
horizon. “ I’ve felt it too, spring after spring. It’s 
something less than heart-ache, something more than 
regret, half restlessness, half hankering for hills beyond 
the stars. It makes one keen to be off, to see new 
country, to go on new roads — to see oneself from a 
new angle, to live as one dreamt of living somewhere 
before one was born. It isn’t that we don’t change, 
that makes that spring feeling, I think. We do 
change, we’re always changing. That’s the pity of 
it. All the best things rush past before we know 
we’ve missed them. It comes to one in springtime 
like a vision, in flashes. The day before you found me 
I saw crocuses in a London Park.” 

She turned her eyes on him, hardly understanding 
his words, yet half aware in an articulate fashion of 
what was behind them. She was also aware, in the 
same dim way, that he was not a man who made self- 


74 ALLWARD 

revelations, and that he had made one to her because he 
liked her. 

44 You don’t like town life? ” she said simply. 

44 Like it ! Good God ! I haven’t a single thing in 
common with it.” 

44 And yet you lived there ? ” 

44 No,” he said, 44 I made a miserable compromise. 
The other thing — the life that you and I are leading 
now, didn’t occur to me, I didn’t realise that it was 
possible somehow to shake oneself entirely free. Yet 
it has been simple — accidental — * — ’’ 

She was puzzled, still thinking him the runaway 
banker. Then she said suddenly — 

44 I don’t want to get old.” 

He turned and considered the lithe, young figure. 

44 But you’re a mere child. You’re not in danger of 
it for years.” 

44 I’ll have to get old some day,” said she. 44 I 
wouldn’t like to be no younger than I am now though. 
There was too many of us chavis.” 

44 1 didn’t know you had any brothers or sisters, 
Mary.” 

44 I’d four brothers and two sisters. Me brothers 
all jailed to Ameriky. One sister died, the other 
married a man what drove about an oil-cart ’bout yer. 
Now he’s an oil and colour shop in the Ditches in 
Southampton.” 

44 1 hope she is happy,” he said, smiling at her out of 
his clear, pleasant eyes. 

44 As happy as most,” said Mary flatly, scattering 
more dried heather bells. 44 1 don’t hold with marry in’ 
a man what isn’t a traveller,” she continued. 44 Lordy, 
I wouldn’t be her, not for anythink.” 

44 Isn’t her husband kind to her? ” 

44 Oh, he’s kind enough. It’s the bothers of it. The 


ALLWARD 75 

inspector cornin’ to drive the chavis off to school, and 
the people what bothers her to come to church or 
chapel, and the noise and cackle that there is with other 
folks lookin’ into her business.” 

He laughed. “ That’s the town life we were talking 
about.” 

“ P’raps ’tis. You can’t never get no quiet in the 
town. Fancy lyin’ about in a town like we are now. 
Why, the gavmush would kick you up and push you 
on before you’d a-know where you was. Folks’d 
never leave us alone anywheres if they’d a-help it. 
What business is it of theirs what we does with 
ourselves ? ” 

“ But here they don’t leave you alone entirely, do 
they? ” he said. “ What about the keepers? ” 

She sighed. “ Here we can dodge them a bit. I’ve 
often yeerd dad say that there’s nothin’ gives he more 
pleasure than to put up the tan on a bit of ground 
where there’s a notice up to say no camp’s allowed. 
It’s some time afore they takes the trouble to come 
round and tarn you off. But they’s fewer and fewer 
campin’ grounds left. Soon they’ll take them all 
away.” 

“ And what will you and your people do then? ” 

“ Go to Ameriky,” she replied, with a deep sigh. 
“ But I don’t wanter go. You see, I was barn in the 
Forest and lived yer all my days, and it wun’t be the 
same nowheres else. Here we knows all the beats, and 
all the paths and the keepers and everythink ; there we’d 
be no better than furriners.” 

“ I should like to know what harm you do that can 
be compared with the devastation left by townspeople 
when they come out picnicking, or motorists who destroy 
country roads,” said he. 

“ Picknickers mess up prapper, don’t they ? An’ 


76 


ALLWARD 


build fires on the ground, and the keepers don’t say 
a lav to ’em. That’s law, that is. Some of they 
keepers is dogs.” 

She took up a piece of dead bracken and chewed it 
between her teeth. Then she lifted her face to him and 
smiled her peculiarly beautiful smile. 

“Funny sort of gaujo you are, an’t you?” she 
said. 

“ Am I? What makes you think that? ” 

“ I dunno. I wouldn’t talk to any of our men as 
I bin talkin’ to you. They’d think I was divvy. I 
means about spring, and all that. But you’re 
different. You takes it nat’ral. What’s yer wife like, 
Adam? ” 

He was silent, surprised at the question. 

She was looking under her thick lashes at him in a 
way that was half mischief, half cunning. “ Aunt 
Gerany told me she were a vassable piece of goods.” 

“ What on earth do you mean? ” 

“ She’ve gone off with another mush, haven’t she? ” 

“ That’s not for you or me to talk about together, 
child,” he said, with sudden withdrawal of confidence. 
“ Look here, your father will be wanting those sticks 
if we’re to cook dinner to-day. We must start 
back.” 

“ Awright,” said she, in the voice of one accustomed 
to obey and placate the male. She threw her bundle 
over her shoulder, holding it by the end of rope, and 
began to walk back, kicking occasionally at the dead 
leaves with her boots, and gazing back at him with 
a smile. Half reluctantly, he took his bundle too and 
followed her. 


CHAPTER VII 


Dinner, for which Lyddon felt a healthy readiness, 
was composed of a stew of rabbit. The history of the 
rabbit was not vouchsafed, but it was excellent eating, 
and all four partook of it largely, after which the 
bones were tossed to the two terriers, who had sat 
throughout the meal upon their stumpy tails, their 
bodies quivering with anticipation. Lyddon sat on 
an upturned bucket ; the rat-catcher, whose constitu- 
tion defied rheumatism, on the ground; and the two 
women just within the open part of the tent. The 
peace of plenitude was upon the rat-catcher; with the 
look of a man settling down to comfort he filled and 
lit his blackened clay. Aunt Gerania followed his ex- 
ample. Mary rolled herself a “ fag,” and did the same 
for Lyddon. 

“ I got another swaygler — pipe — in the van what 
my old mush used to smoke,” said Aunt Gerania. 
“ You’se welcome to it, my gennleman. Fags is for 
young gals ; there’s no fruitiness in a fag.” 

He thanked her, but declined. 

“ He ain’t goin’ to smoke your old man’s pipe,” said 
Mary, scandalised at her suggestion. 

“ This cigarette is fruity enough,” said Lyddon. 
“ It is stronger tobacco than I ever use.” He availed 
himself of the piece of burning stick which the girl 
held, and she lit her own afterwards. Within the 
tent, upon which the sun had shone for an hour, 
adding its warmth to that of the fire, it was hot in 
spite of the open entrance, and the girl lolled back 
77 


78 


ALLWARD 


lazily against a bag of straw, clasping one knee in her 
favourite attitude, and unconsciously displaying the 
line of her firm young breast. The heat gave her a rich 
colour, her well-moulded throat was like old ivory, and 
the red beads and bright kerchief afforded the contrast 
which her skin needed. 

“ What a beautiful young animal it is,” thought 
Lyddon. 

She smiled at him, as if conscious that he was admir- 
ing her, but accepting it as natural. It was a gentle, 
half-melancholy smile. 

“ I feels that sleepy,” she declared, with half-shut 
eyes. 

“ Well, goo to sleep then ; who’s hinderin’ you? ” said 
Aunt Gerania. 

The hindrance came suddenly from without. There 
was the sound of a footfall upon withered leaves, the 
footfall of a man with heavy shoes who trod without 
regard for obstacles and did not pick his way. None 
of the four outcasts took notice of it, thinking it one 
of the men from the two neighbouring camps. 

But in the next instant, without warning, a voice 
broke into their peace, and a man stood in their midst 
as suddenly as though he had dropped from the 
clouds. 

He was a tall lean man of some sixty-seven years ; 
his hair was white, his face pale with the pallor 
of old age, but healthy as if much of his life had 
been spent beneath the sky. His nose and eyes were 
his most salient features. The former, wide-nostrilled, 
hooked, high-bridged, noble, was the nose of a 
patriarch, of a man of strong personality. The eyes, 
dark and piercing, (were half veiled by horny lids, 
almost lashless, though the brows above them were 
thick and white and shaggy. His beard and mous- 


ALLWARD 


79 


tache hid the lower portion of his face; the clothes 
he wore were those of a well-to-do peasant in his Sunday 
best. 

Aunt Gerania sat up with a jerk. 

“ Whoever will be saved ” began the old man in a 

loud, sonorous voice, raising one hand. 

Mary stared at him with a dumb, fascinated look; 
the rat-catcher continued to smoke as if no one was 
there. 

The stranger took not the slightest notice of his 
frigid reception. He began to quote Scriptural warn- 
ings, and then, putting his head right into the tent 
between the two scared women, he continued — 

“Look at this fire! It’s burning, isn’t it, friends? 
It is red-hot! That’s what hell is like, my friends — 
that’s what the hell is like that’s preparing for you 
if you don’t repent ! ” His eye caught a small wood- 
louse laboriously travelling up the brown blanket. 
He picked it up between his finger and thumb, and 
dropped it into the midst of the sticks. There was a 
little sputter. 

“ That poor insect has felt for a second what you 
will feel for centuries and centuries, friends, if you 
don’t turn to Him that’s waiting for you to repent. 
Think of it! Think of the agony of it, the terrible 
pain ” 

“ Begone, you old varmint,” said Aunt Gerania, 
recovering herself. “ Call yourself deligious and ta’k 
that ways, scaring the life outer folks what’ve done 
you no harm! We’se honest people; what call’s it 
of yours to come droppin’ our live-stock into the fire? 
The Lard’ll knaw better than to listen to the likes o’ 
you when He’s dealin’ out fire and brimstone. You 
lei yourself off, and if you wants to preach, you goo 
and preach to they as wants to hear you.” 


80 


ALLWARD 


44 Woman, if this night thy soul be required of 
thee P 

Aunt Gerania sprang up in a sudden rage, scattering 
the plates and sending the terriers flying. 

“ Be off with you, you old creetur.” She spat 

over her left shoulder. “ Goo an’ take yer unlucky 
face somewheres else, you nasty dirty old vagabone ! ” 
A torrent of abuse fell from her lips. 

The old man stood unmoved, his voice raised to 
drown hers. The din was indescribable. The rat- 
catcher smoked on placidly, Mary sat half hypnotised, 
Lydaon had an hysterical impulse to laugh. Aunt 
Gerania screamed every epithet she could lay her tongue 
to, and from the stranger every now and again, when 
she paused for breath, came disjointed sentences of bib- 
lical sound, heard only in the brief lull. 

Finally, as though in calm disdain rather than in 
intimidation, the tall stranger moved off, and they heard 
his voice raised in a bass chant. 

Aunt Gerania sank down speechless and trembling. 

The rat-catcher looked at her. 

44 Whyever did you set on the poor old dinnlo like 
that, Gerany ? There ain’t no harm to him.” 

44 Cornin’ yer. with his unlucky face ! ” she gasped. 
44 Talk of me dyin’ to-night, can he? Well, I hope 
he’ll die to-night, and I warr’nt medeari Duvvlus 
won’t be as pleased to see him as the old fool reckons 
for.” 

44 Shoon to him,” said the rat-catcher, smoking 
placidly. 44 Singin’ yims to the hollies.” 

44 A fine deligious man he is,” said Aunt Gerania, 
still panting. 44 When’ve he ever put his hand into 
his pocket for the likes of us? All he troubles about 
is hisself and makin’ other folks listen to his stinkin’ 
rafulty old ta’k. He’d ’ve stood here preachin’ till 


ALLWARD 


81 


star-time if I’d ’a’ let him, the old vagabone. And 
him not a rashai neither. Rashais is bound to preach, 
’tis their business, look,” she said, calming a little, 
and turning to Lyddon. “ They’se paid for it, and 
they sets about it civil. But they darsen’t come here 
with their talk ; they knows better nor that.” 

“ A rashai’s a parson,” Mary explained to Lyddon. 
“ You fergits the rashai in the wagon painted with 
texes,” said she to her aunt. 

44 There’s no harm in he,” said the old woman. 
44 He’s civil, he is ; and he don’t wish you may 
die.” 

44 There’s no harm in this old feller neither,” per- 
sisted the rat-catcher. 44 He’s not right in his sherro. 
There’s lots of folks what’s not right in their sherro 
that’s never chivved in the divvyken. I yeerd tell 
down at the public that on his weddin’ day, as he 
come out of church, de dikked some tents stickin’ 
out of the fuzz-bushes. He left the young joovel he’d 
just rummered, and off he went, and stayed preachin’ 
to them till it was dark.” 

44 1 warr’nt his joovel wished she’d a-lelled some other 
mush.” 

44 If he catches her a-laughin’, they say, he ta’ks at her 
all night.” 

44 Dordi! if I’d a mush like that there old jookel, I’d 
sooner sove in the tober. She oughter del him when he 
gets ta’kin’.” 

44 It’s a ladge he didn’t rummer tute, Gerany,” 
remarked the rat-catcher, with a quiet grin. 44 It’s a 
pity he didn’t marry you.” 

She replied with a remark in the Romany best un- 
translated, and then turned to Lyddon. 

44 I’m all against they folks what comes and ta’ks 
deligious to us,” said she. 44 Us gypsy women works 


82 


ALLWARD 


hard all our lives for every bit of bread we eats, and 
we don’t have no time like the ladies what sits still 
in their houses to pray to God about things — we has 
to go out and arn something. But He’ll not tarn us 
out of heaven for that. He died to save us all, now, 
didn’t He? That’s what I says. If I wuz to pray for 
daily bread without goin’ out to arn it, ’twudn’t drop 
from heaven, look.” 

Lyddon uttered a soothing commonplace, and Aunt 
Gerania relit her pipe. 

“ My old mother, she wuz a good old woman. She 
liked her drop of tatti panni when she could get it, 
but who don’t? When she was a-dyin’ we sent for 
the rashai, but he never come for three days, and 
then she was very far gone. ‘ Come and read prayers 
out of the Bible,’ 1 says she to him when he corned. 
And when he got prayin’, she says to him, ‘ I can 
say that I never telled any one anything that was 
untrue, and never acted dishonest by any one all my 
life.’ When he come out he says to me, ‘ I’d no 
notion,’ says he, ‘ that your mother was such a good 
old woman.’ Seein’ her goo by in the cart, look, 
smokin’ her cutty, and smilin’, he never thought to 
find how deligious she was. Just afore she died, she 
hollered me from the van. ‘ Come, Gerania,’ she 
says, fi I sees a beautiful garden full of flowers.’ 
6 What colour is the flowers, mother?’ I says. ‘All 
colours,’ she says, ‘ but most on ’em white. Some 
on ’em’s faded,’ she says. I went in, and she says, 
‘ You should have come when I hollered you, and then 
you’d ’ve seen ’em.’ ” 

“ She used to sell flowers over in Christchurch,” said 
the rat-catcher in explanation to Lyddon. 

1 Kushti lavs out of the Boro Lil are much appreciated by New 
Forest gypsies. 


ALLWARD 


83 


“ It wasn’t they flowers she saw,” said Aunt Gerania 
indignantly. Her dark eyes were brimming with 
tears. 44 4 Don’t you see nobody standing there? ’ I 
says. 4 No, no one,’ she says; 4 on’y the beautiful 
flowers.’ That was just afore she died. She was a 
good woman, the poor old dear, if ever there was 
one. My dad died when we were little, and she had 
to arn for us all — a loaf of bread had to last us for 
three days then, I can tell you.” 

44 But how did she earn it ? ” asked Lyddon. 

44 Oh, by sellin’ flowers and pegs and that, and doin’ 
a bit of dookerin’ now and agen. There was some 
folks as was good to us. Once she got a bar by 
dookerin’ and that was all through an artis’ gennle- 
man what lived down against Lyndhurst. We was 
camped up by Minstead Mill, and there was two 
ladies stayin’ up at the Compton Arms. When my 
mother called in at the gennleman’s with her basket 
one day the two ladies wuz there, lookin’ at his picters. 
He always had a pleasant word for her, and the two 
ladies they asked her to dooker them. She says, 4 Not 
to-day, my pretty ladies, the stars isn’t right for it, 
but I’ll come and dooker you to-morrow up by Stoney- 
cross.’ She said that artful, look, because if a lady 
or gennleman puts their hand in their pocket sudden, 
without expectin’ it, it’s sixpence instead of a shilling. 
But if they knows you’re cornin’ a-purpose to see 
them, they has to give you a bit extry so as not to 
look mean. And these was rich, look. Besides, my 
mother wuz afraid they might smell the drop of drink 
she’d had that day. So she says, 4 If I tells you true, 
you’ll not fergit to treat the poor gypsy woman hand- 
some, will you, my pretties ? ’ That evenin’ she went 
up to the gennleman and says she, 4 For the love of 
Miduvvlus, my dear,’ says she, 4 tell me all about 


ALLWARD 


84 

they gaujis. I got to dooker them to-morrow.’ The 
artis’ he laughed to bust hisself, an’ he told her all 
that she wanted to know, ’cos he knowed them up in 
Lunnon. And the next day when they came to 
be dookered, you should have seen their faces ! 
She’d dookered them as they’d never been dookered 
before. ‘ Lard bless us and save us,’ they says to 
each other, 6 the woman’s a witch — that she is ! ’ 
And they give her a bar, that they did — a golden suv- 
verin.” 

“ Do you tell fortunes? ” Lyddon asked. 

“ Sometimes,” she replied cautiously. “ At a house 
where I calls sometimes there was a young lady as 
wanted the cards laid for her, but I said I couldn’t do 
it, because the other ladies is deligious, and the’se 
good customers of mine. Besides, you has to be careful 
these days, or they lels you for it.” A profound 
melancholy darkened her face as she puffed at her pipe, 
the melancholy of one who felt the hand of civilisa- 
tion was against her mode of life and her shifts to 
get a living. 

Mary raised herself, leant forward and threw the 
end of her cigarette, which she had smoked until it 
burnt her lips, into the fire. 

“ I’m goin’ into the wood for a bit,” she said abruptly, 
getting to her feet. “ You cornin’, Adam? ” 

He had a self-protective instinct against her as 
she stood there, her dark, thin face full of splendid 
colour, her silver rings gleaming on her brown and 
smoky hands, and replied that he thought he would 
remain. 

“ Awright,” she said indifferently. She shook wood- 
ash and tobacco-ash off her skirts, settled her gaudy 
kerchief, and began to walk away. Then she paused and 
turned round. 


ALLWARD 


85 


“ You might come, look,” said she, with her per- 
suasive, curiously attractive smile. “ I likes to talk to 
some one, and there’s nuthin’ to do.” 

“ There’s fuzz to be gathered,” said the rat-catcher. 

“ That ain’t his job, it’s yours.” 

“ All right,” said Lyddon, “ I’ll go with you and 
we’ll bring back some furze.” He caught the hook 
which the rat-catcher tossed him, and followed the 
girl into the brown and silver silence of the wood. 
They did not desecrate it, except for the sound of 
disturbed leaves and breaking twigs caused by their 
tread. An old woman, her face so furrowed by age 
and hard work as to be almost inhuman, passed them 
with a bundle of wood on her back, a quarter of a mile 
further on, and gazed at them without speaking. She 
was the widow of an old deer-poacher, but had the 
forester’s instinctive hostility for nomads. Her eyes 
beneath their wrinkled lids were hard as stones as she 
looked at the young man and girl. 

Something in the inquisitiveness of her gaze seemed 
to couple them together, and Lyddon bestirred himself 
suddenly to break the silence which they had kept, and 
they talked of such subjects as were near to his heart: 
the gradual encroachments of landowners and builders 
upon footpaths that were only useful to vagrants, who 
were powerless to dispute their right of way; of the 
changing of the land into the hands of landowners who 
had no love for it, and no tolerance for such as they, 
but looked upon it solely as a money-producing property. 
He found Mary as intelligent as he had guessed her to 
be. Like most nomads, she was quick of understanding, 
just in her judgment. 

“ Father saw the keeper this marning while we was 
gettin’ sticks,” said she at length. “ We shall leave 
to-morrow.” 


86 


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“ What a pity. I like this wood. Is it for Thorney- 
hill? ” 

“ That’s right. Aunt Gerania’s goin’ to speak for 
you for a job of carpentering, if you can do it.” 

He was amused to see that he had been taken seriously. 
But he was in the mood to take whatever came to 
him. 

“ She’ve taken a fancy to you, she have.” 

“ Well, that’s mutual. I admire your Aunt Gerania 
as much as her name, which is one I never heard 
before.” 

“ Funny sart of name, I calls it,” Mary returned. 
“ If we goes up there, Adam, I shall bide along with 
my other aunt, and Aunt Gerany will goo down to 
Heavenly Bottom for a bit with her darter Julia. 
Dad may goo off to Ringwood on a rat-catchin’ job. 
So you’d best keep in the hollies near aunt’s house, 
then we shall be near and be able to help you a bit. 
They’s lots of mumpers in the hollies, poor creeturs, 
but you needn’t have nothin’ to say to they. One 
of aunt’s girls’ll keep an eye on the tent while you goes 
to work.” 

“ Look here,” he said, “ when I made that bargain 
with you, I didn’t mean to hang on and be a nuisance. 
I can shift for myself as well as any one.” 

“ I knaws that. But we does what we likes to do. 
Besides, dad’ve got twenty-five pound of yourn, and if 
you looked as if you didn’t belong to none of us, the 
keepers might be askin’ questions.” 

Still the idea of the change to Thorneyhill was not 
pleasant to him. To live in a wood with Mary and 
her father was one thing, to live near a village, in 
close daily touch with relatives who might have 
neither the attractions of cleanliness or primitiveness, 
was another. 


ALLWARD 


87 


“ I don’t fancy settling down,” said he. “ I thought 
you were travelling.” 

“ So we shall ag’in, after a bit. We generally bides 
about here till May. And then we goes up country, 
and you might come along with us. You could earn 
a bit, like we does, and maybe we could travel a bit 
further nor what we does most years. We could get 
jobs along the road.” 

“ I should like that,” he replied. “ Your aunt is a 
house-dweller? ” 

“ She’ve a-lived in a house for thirty years and paid 
her rent reg’lar, or she’d a-been turned out,” said Mary. 
“ Leastways sometimes they goes strawberry-pickin’ or 
hoppin’.” 

“ In Kent?” 

“ No, ’bout yer, up against Farnham and Alton and 
that.” 

“ Oh,” he said absently. 

Perhaps she divined something of what was passing 
in his mind, for she remarked, “ They won’t bother 
you. I’ll tell them you wants to bide quiet. They’re 
respectable folks what knows how to kip their place, 
look.” 

They were in the deeps of the great leaf-paved 
wood, as vast and enclosed as the Hall of Columns 
in Kamak. Against the sky the network of twigs 
was tinged with red like the red of young blood, the 
buds which would presently, as in miracle, become 
light green. The enormous girth of the beeches, 
overgrown here and there with the vivid, sudden green 
of the moss, was worthy of their gaunt branches, 
spread high overhead in grey, naked beauty. There 
was in the air the bitter smell of damp, dead leaves, 
the subtle perfume of the earth, and the strange, 
occult, exciting magnetism of spring. It was as if 


88 


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the wood had a vast, slow, obscure personality, which 
was beginning to wake to the passion of spring. 
Lyddon, all his life abnormally sensitive to atmo- 
sphere, just as he had a sixth sense with regard to 
those forces of Nature which had made his genius 
what it was, felt this personality of the wood sweep 
through his whole being, as a wind sweeps over a field 
of grass, bending it, thrilling it. 

Mary had come to a standstill, and stood silent, her 
hand against the bole of a great beech, in an attitude 
of tension. She was part of the wood, and was uncon- 
scious of it as a cave-woman. There was something 
entirely primitive about her that made her seem part 
of the forest as a squirrel or a bird is part of the 
forest. 

44 What are you thinking of? ” he asked mechanic- 
ally. 

She made no answer, but placed her hand on his arm, 
her mouth forming a 44 Ssh ! ” 

He listened, but heard nothing that singled itself 
out of the usual sounds which make the under- 
tones of a stillness: rustlings here, the faint, papery 
shiver of some dried leaves, the chirping of some 
birds. 

Suddenly she motioned to him to remain where he 
was, and, lithe and silent as a young Indian, she 
crept off in the direction of some holly bushes and 
tufts of heather in a clearing some hundred yards 
further. He stood obedient and motionless where she 
had left him. 

She disappeared, and in three minutes he saw her 
emerge, flushed and triumphant. 

44 There’s luck for you ! ” In her hand was the 
limp, furry body of a rabbit. 44 1 yeerd it squeaking, 
and I thought it wuz bein’ caught by a stoat. But 


ALLWARD 89 

’twas caught in a trap. None of my settin’, but 
findin’s keep in’ ! ” 

“ It’s dead!” 

“ Course it is. I squeezed its throat.” 

He looked at her hands involuntarily, and saw a slight 
blood-stain on one of them. She wiped it unconcernedly 
on her dress. 

“ Where shall we put it ? ” she asked. 

“ Let me carry it.” 

“ And if a keeper wuz to come along, he wouldn’t 
be likely to believe the trap was none of our settin’, 
now would he ! Yer, there’s a big pocket in that coat 
of dad’s what you got on. Slip it in ; it’s carried many 
another.” 

The warm body of the little animal was deposited 
in the coat pocket before he realised what he was 
doing. One of Lyddon’s peculiarities was a dislike of 
killing any animal, great or small. He was a good 
shot, but rarely accepted an invitation to shoot because 
of the nausea he felt when he saw the dead birds he had 
killed so neatly. 

“ Poor little beast,” he said involuntarily. 

She laughed. “ Shushies has to take their chance like 
we has to take our chance.” 

“ You are as ruthless as any other wild animal.” 

She flushed, not understanding what he meant, and 
yet suspecting that he was referring to some finer feeling 
which she did not possess. 

“ We kills because we wants to eat,” she said crudely. 
“ You’se always had your killin’ done for you. It’s 
all what you’re used to. I lay you’d kill a flea if you 
wuz to see one.” 

“ There’s an interval between the sheep in the field 
and the chop on the plate that I prefer not to think 


90 


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about,” he said. “ I eat the chop, of course. There 
is some blood on your hand.” 

She put it mechanically to her mouth, moistened it, 
and gave it another rub on her skirt. 

“ How funny you do talk,” she said, deciding to take 
him, after all, as a joke. 


CHAPTER VIII 


The next morning was fine but overcast. The sky 
was grey and soft; there was a rawness in the air 
which seemed to have set the year back again. This 
did not prevent the birds from singing lustily. The 
rat-catcher was up betimes, and by nine o’clock the 
tents were up and the carts packed, the horse and 
donkey harnessed, and the caravan, too, in starting 
trim. It was settled that they should divide into two 
parties. The caravan, which was heavy and must keep 
to the high-road, would follow the longer route through 
Burley Street and Burley village on its way to Parke- 
stone ; the rat-catcher would accompany his sister with 
the horse and cart that far, having business at the 
“ public,” while Mary and Lyddon, With the donkey-cart, 
would take the uneven track over Burley Beacon to the 
Thorneyhill and Christchurch highway. 

There was the business of getting the caravan 
started — Aunt Gerania’s horse was old, cunning and 
lazy, and jibbed in a way which would have dis- 
couraged a carter. But only for a few moments; the 
rat-catcher’s gypsy blandishments and the shoulders of 
the men to the wheels of the vehicle dissuaded him 
from his mood of obduracy, and the van was soon 
lumbering out of the wood, all its crockery clattering 
and its appendages swinging; had crossed the piece of 
moor and begun its steadier progress on the road. 
Mary and Lyddon watched the yellow house on wheels 
until it was out of sight. The rat-catcher followed. 
There was no need for the other two to make an early 
start, and they proceeded to remove the traces of their 
91 


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ALLWARD 


occupation as far as possible, for their reputation and 
favour were at stake. The New Forest gypsy leaves 
little litter and no dirt behind him; he stays so short 
a time that the grass is not yellowed. A patch where 
the fire-tray has stood, a forgotten rag on a furze- 
bush is all the trace which he leaves. A picnic-party 
will wreak more harm in a wood in a day than a true 
New Forest gypsy by a week’s occupation. 

Then Mary shouted to the donkey, which stood in 
the annoyingly humble attitude of asses, its head 
down-drooped, its expression one of endless patience. 
The small grey animal tugged obediently, and, know- 
ing the way, pulled the light cart by itself into the 
uneven track which communicated with the high- 
road. 

They went over the same ground which they had 
walked the day before when stick-collecting. To-day 
spring was hiding, in an access of shyness : wanton yes- 
terday, she was acting the part of a prude to-day. The 
long valley beyond the wood was milkied over with 
grey mist, and looked desolate and lifeless. It seemed 
from the lowness of the clouds that some miles away it 
must be raining. 

44 Will it be wet to-day? ” he asked his companion. 

She glanced about her. 

44 No,” she said moodily. 

44 1 should say it would.” 

44 Well, you’d say wrong.” 

44 You’re very quiet this morning.” 

44 Am I?” She smiled. 44 Well, what is there to 
say ? ” 

44 That is just what makes it pleasant to be with 
you,” he remarked suddenly. 44 You’ve what is 
rare — the sense to be silent when you’ve nothing to 


ALLWARD 93 

“Did your wife ta’k a lot, then?” she asked 
curiously. 

“ I was not speaking of her. Most women are restless 
when they are not talking. They fidget or wonder what 
is the matter.” 

She stared at him with simple eyes, as brown as 
the leaves underfoot. 

“ That’s one of the diseases of civilisation,” he said : 
“ the inability to keep one’s tongue or one’s mind still 
for ten consecutive minutes.” 

“What kind of minnits those?” she asked, 
puzzled. 

44 Ten minutes by the clock.” 

44 Do ladies talk such an awful lot, then ? ” 

He laughed in genuine amusement. 

44 Do you, when you’re with them? ” she persisted. 

44 I never could. I was always afraid of women.” 

“ You afraid of women? ” She smiled. 

44 You are afraid of no one, I suppose,” he said. 

44 Oh yes, I be. There’s some folk I’d run a mile 
sooner than speak to. There’s one keeper I’m afeerd 
of. When I was little I useter holler till I was blue 
if I seed a gavmush. But that was because they’d 
tell me the policeman was a-comin’ to take me away. 
4 Here, the gavmush’s a-wellin’,’ my mother useter say ; 
4 he’ll lei you and koor you ’ (take you and beat you, 
that is). I ain’t frightened of most people, look. If 
I was to meet a ghost I’d be skeered, I think, but I never 
seen one. I goes by the mulleni-tan double-quick in 
the dark, though.” 

44 What’s the mulleni-tan ? ” 

44 The churchyard, where they buries the fokey.” 

44 But why should they stay by their graves, the 
poor ghosts ! Why, if I were a ghost, I should want 
to go to all the places where I’d been happy. I should 


94 


ALLWARD 


want to walk over Dartmoor and wait for sunrise over 
the tors — I’d want to tramp over all the country I’d 
loved, and sit in the little inns where I’d drunk beer 
or slept.” 

44 So’d I,” said she, with much interest. 44 But the 
good ones is gone to heaven, look; it’s on’y the bad 
ones what stays about and skeers people. Least, I 
don’t know. When any on us dies, we burns all their 
clotheses and things — or if we didn’t we should be mulleni 
— see them agen, I means.” 

44 If your aunt were to die, you’d burn that best shawl 
of hers, that she’s so proud of? ” 

44 Yes.” 

44 And the van ? ” 

44 No,” she said doubtfully. 44 Though in the old 
time they useter. My grandfather’s wagon was burnt 
when he died, and all the gypsies come for miles 
around to see the buryin’.” 

44 But why? ” 

44 1 dunno.” She laughed and added, 44 P’raps the 
waggon and clotheses has got their ghosteses too, and 
the dead folk uses them.” 

44 That’s a very old idea, Mary,” he said. 44 The 
Egyptians had it thousands of years ago.” 

44 Well, there now ! ” she exclaimed, wondering. 

44 But to burn things that may be useful to the living 
seems a pity.” 

44 It do sim a pity sometimes,” said she. 44 There’s 
old Abram Stanley, what used to play the fiddle at 
the fairs when Aunt Gerany was little. She says 
when he died they burnt his two fiddles and the baize 
bags they was in, and the ribbons he used to tie ’em 
up with when he played at the fairs, or a weddin’, 
or down at Burley Club. He could play anythink, 
he could. They burnt a carnet, too, and a drum; I 


ALLWARD 


95 


don’t know if he played ’em, but all the lot went into 
the fire. You should hear Aunt Gerania tell about his 
bury in’.” 

“ I should like to.” 

“ ’Tis what we always used to do. You see, they 
used to think that if any one wuz to use the things 
or wear the clotheses of a man what was dead, he’d 
be unlucky, as well as bein’ follered by the mullo of 
the man what they belonged to.” 

66 And do you think so, too? ” 

“ I don’t know as I’d keer to wear anythink what 
belonged to a dead girl.” 

“ Would you if she had been dead a thousand years 
— more than a thousand years? ” 

She reflected. “ Dead’s dead, however long it 
is.” 

“ But, Mary, you’re walking on the dead all the 
time. The very earth underneath here is made of 
dead leaves and plants and dead animals. You have 
fed on dead things ever since you first stopped drink- 
ing your mother’s milk, your dress is made of the skin 
of a dead sheep, your shoes — * — ” 

<£ What you do ta’k ! Animals and leaves hasn’t got 
mullos.” 

“ Why shouldn’t they have ? ” 

“ You do ta’k silly, sometimes. Who’s ever dikked 
the mullo of a sheep or of a dog? ” 

“ People have thought that they’ve seen phantom 
horses and dogs.” 

“ And all sarts of other things, too, I dar say, when 
they’d a drop of tatti panni inside their skins. I’ve 
yeerd my uncle tell a tale of a man what were chased 
by a pack of hounds half through a night, and when 
the daylight come, and he run into Minstead church- 
yard with all of ’em arter him, their tongues hangin’ 


96 


ALLWARD 


out and the slaver all drippin’, they vanished as if 
they was smoke. But I warr’nt he’d a-spent a fine 
lot of money at the pub afore he yeerd them. I 
don’t yold wi’ drinkin’ yourself silly. A man’s no 
better than a fool when he’s motto. Dad has his 
drop now and agen, but he don’t drink like some of 
these mumpers. Travellers what has good Romany 
blood in ’em has too much sense. At a weddin’ or 
at the races now and agen they takes their share of 
levina or tatti panni, but they gits motto and finishes 
with it; they don’t keep on drinkin’ and drinkin’ their- 
selves silly.” 

There was a look of scorn in her face. 

“Do you know what I’ve been wishing?” he said 
suddenly. 66 To see what you would look like in some 
Egyptian ornaments that I have at home. There is 
a necklace of cornelian and blue glass, a head-dress of 
beaten gold, earrings — * — ” 

“ Did they belong to that girl you said died thousands 
of years ago? ” 

“ They did.” 

“ Wheer did you get ’em? ” 

“ I bought them. They were found in her tomb at 
Thebes five years ago.” 

“ And they’d been on the carpse all that time? ” 

“ Yes,” 

“ Well, I wouldn’t put ’em on if you was to pay 
me. Besides, if you was to goo up to Lunnon to get 
’em, you’d be lelled. These red beads is good enough 
for me.” 

“ They’d suit you,” he said. 

“ Would you say as I was good-lookin’? ” 

“ I should.” 

“ Wait till you sees Em’ly,” she said, with a touch 


ALLWARD 


97 


of wistfulness. “ I’m ugly side of her. She goos 
and sits to artises in Barnemouth, and gits paid 
for it.” 

“ Who’s Em’ly ? ” 

“ My cousin up at Tharneyhill. Look, we be come 
to the Tharneyhill road now — it’s right up theer 
across the moor on the hill, where all they hollies and 
firs is.” 

A peewit rose, crying peevishly, as they left the 
last field behind, and came out on to the stretch of 
boggy open country across which their road lay 
straight and white, dwindling away as it travelled 
into the distance. To* the left a large stretch of 
bog water, a quarter of a mile away, shone like steel. 
Here and there a stunted fir rose in the waste of dead 
heather. 

They crossed the railway bridge and pushed their 
way slowly along. Brown bog water tinkled and 
trickled by the roadside; coarse silver-green bog moss 
gleamed in patches between the tussocks, showing that 
a horse would be unwise to trust his weight to the 
treacherous surface; here and there was a stretch of 
sand washed bare and barren by the rains. Behind the 
travellers clouds had gathered, of fair-weather grey 
and white, with vistas of deep blue between. Torn 
and beautiful these clouds were, with livid shades 
and snowy lights, forming a moody architectural sky. 
Further west it was clearer, and only on the horizon 
cumuli were piled up in sun-adoring masses in the 
pale blue. The wind had risen in the south-west, 
with a tang of salt in it, and the freshness of unsullied 
miles. 

“ Who wuz right about the rain P ” said Mary. 
“ But it’ll be wet to-morrow. It’s soft weather for the 
time of 3'ear.” 


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She walked along buoyantly. Inclined to slouch 
when she carried her basket, she had the grace of any 
wild creature, in spite of her ill-shod feet, when walking 
without a burden. 

“ How natural it feels to be tramping along like 
this,” Lyddon thought. “ How natural ! ” He found 
it easy to imagine that Mary was his sister, that he 
had led the life of the roads for years instead of for 
days, and that the Lyddon who had lived upon the 
rack in surroundings which he had hated, amongst 
people with whom he had had little in common, was 
the creature of dream, and the refugee tramp the 
reality. Mary had the gift of companionship. Her 
very crudeness and ignorance refreshed him, and 
stimulated his interest in her. Her innate honesty and 
common sense often made him feel small, even envious 
of her. 

They were passing over a deep brown bog stream, 
and Mary left the road to run down the bank, bend 
down, scoop up some water into her hollowed hands, 
and drink it with a hissing intake of her breath. He 
wondered if she would take soup with similar audi- 
bility. Then he smiled; the thought of her in civilised 
surroundings was almost as barbarous as it would be 
to transplant her in person into the life where such 
things matter. Did they matter as much as Society 
would have us believe? Were the thousand-and-one 
restrictions which civilisation places upon a man of 
good breeding as vital as popular prejudice makes 
them? In the Sahara it is impolite not to drink up 
one’s coffee with a noise, or to belch over a good 
meal; in London it is unpardonable to do so. In 
Italy a man of breeding walks nearest the wall when 
with a lady ; in England on the kerb. He thought of 
a man who founded a Mustard and Mutton Society, 


ALLWARD 


99 


at the dinners of which a man could have mint-sauce 
with beef if he desired it, or eat asparagus with a 
spoon and fork. These were to be the outward and 
visible signs of inward and invisible freedom of spirit 
— not that he had ever remarked that the members of 
the society were more enlightened than their fellow- 
creatures. Their eccentricities were self-conscious. 
But then to be a member of a society is to kill spon- 
taneity. To be spontaneously enthusiastic or even 
eccentric is excusable ; to be eccentric or enthusiastic 
in a body controlled by a code of rules is damnable. 
Religions as well as crazes have been killed by the 
society-forming instinct. 

They went slowly up the half-mile of hill at the 
end of their journey. The donkey seemed to doze as 
he walked ; Mary was uncommunicative. At the 
summit, by a gravel pit, some forest ponies were grazing, 
shaggy and unkempt. One mother, red-brown as the 
dead bracken, had a foal with her which nosed for milk, 
and whinnied inquisitively with lifted nostrils at the 
approach of the donkey-cart. The ponies moved off 
gently in a body down the valley. As the travellers 
reached the brow of the hill, a labourer in a cart ap- 
peared over it. His face was dark and un-English; he 
wore earrings in his ears. He greeted Mary and stared 
at Lyddon. 

“ That’s one of the Pidgeleys,” said she when he had 
passed. “ He’ve a-quit travellin’ and took a cottage up 
yer. Married a cousin of mine.” 

“ You all seem to be related,” Lyddon commented. 

“ Well, you see, they isn’t so many of us travellers, 
after all, is there? And we marries amongst ourselves, 
that’s where ’tis, look.” 

“ When will you marry ? ” he asked, looking straight 
into her pretty eyes. 


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“ I dunno,” she replied, gazing away from him. 
“ There’s a man as wants me now. I says I’ll 
never marry, but I specks I shall do like the rest of 
’em.” 

“ You’re not in love with the man, then? ” 

“ He’s aWright,” she said indifferently. “ But I 
don’t know as I shall marry he. Anyways, I’m not 
a-goin’ to for a long time yet. We was took together 
at Lyndhurst Fair.” 

“ Took? ” 

“ Photygraphed. There’s a man goes round with 
a photy graphin’ machine and does you while you waits. 
Sixpence. I got it in a box in the cart. I’ll show 
you.” 

She went to the back of the cart, and took from a 
corner of it a dirty cigar-box tied up with string. 
Inside was a collection of valued objects: a silver 
brooch, a “ lucky stone,” a grimy letter or two, and 
sundry other odds and ends. She held the lid in her 
teeth, and ' selected from the heterogeneous set of 
treasures a photograph of the shiny description which 
one sees in the windows of cheap photographers in the 
East End. 

“ Yer ! ” she said, and gave it to him. 

He saw a girl who was chiefly mouth, two deep 
shadows running from nose to chin. He only saw a 
faint resemblance in this grinning young woman to 
Mary. The man was an unlicked lout of a youth, with 
a smooth and greasy curl over his forehead and a 
commonplace, cunning expression. 

“ What’s his name? ” asked Lyddon. 

“ Alf.” 

Lyddon guessed as much from the young man’s 
appearance. 

“ Alf what ? ” 


ALLWARD 


101 


“ Alf Stace. He belongs yerabouts, but I met bim 
up hoppin’. His dad’s got steam-horses, and be 
boxes — what you calls a 4 pug.’ He likes travellin’ all 
about.” 

44 Is he a cousin? ” 

44 No; he don’t come of a travellin’ family. His 
mother and father took to the roads because they 
liked it.” 

44 But ” he began, then checked himself. It 

seemed nothing short of revolting to him to think 
that Mary, with her savage purity, her peculiar 
charm, should ever be the mother of this egregious 
creature’s children. There was something rare and fine 
about her that made such a possibility abhorrent, 
unthinkable. 

They had turned off the main road on to a track, and 
the cart was bumping over the soft ruts. 

44 Well,” said she, 44 what d’you think of it? ” 

44 It’s abominable of you — a libel.” 

She let her thoughtful eyes rest on his. 44 Am I 
prettier then that? ” 

44 Much better looking. As for the young man you 
think of marrying — I don’t like him.” 

44 Ain’t he good enough for you ? ” she asked in a 
somewhat hostile voice. 

44 He’s not good enough for you, in my opinion. 
And what’s more, you know it.” 

44 Why’s he not good enough? You never spoke to 
him.” 

44 1 don’t like his eyes. They are too close together. 
The mouth is loose, cruel, weak.” 

44 Well, you don’t like me in the picter neither, so 
we’re a pair.” 

44 What’s wrong with you there is grin and bad light- 


102 ALLWARD 

ing. You’re worse than an actress on a picture post- 
card — all teeth.” 

“ I wuz happy that day,” she said wistfully. “ I 
enj’yed myself.” 

“ With the young man — Alf? ” 

“ No, not ezackly. But there’s some dfiys when you 
feels happy and don’t know why. I had a real good 
time. Em’ly and lots of the other gals was there. 
Lordy, how we laughed! In the evenin’ we all got 
singin’ and dancin’. I could have danced for three days 
and nights without stoppin’.” 

“ With Alf? ” 

“ With anybody with a pair of legs to them, or 
without, for that matter. I dances step-dances to 
meself. Once a lady who seen me dance asked dad 
to let me goo up to Lunnon an’ dance on the stage. 
’Twas for a society, look, a sort of place where they 
gets folks to dance old dances what people don’t 
dance nowadays like they useter. But dad wouldn’t 
let me goo.” 

“ I think he was right. Were you sorry? ” 

“ No. I didn’t want to dance afore a lot like that. 
I’d be ashamed. I’d want to run.” 

“ Well, life with Alf Stace won’t be all fairs and 
dancing.” 

“ Course not.” 

“ And he’ll beat you sometimes.” 

“ Not he. I wouldn’t be beat by the likes of he.” 

“ Who would you be beaten by? ” 

Her face assumed a blank look. 

“ If I wuz fond of my mush, look <” she said 

hesitatingly. “ There’s two kinds of lovin’, you see. 
You loves a man out of kindness because he’d do 
most anything for you — or you loves him because 


ALLWARD 103 

you can’t help it, even if he’s done nothin’ for 
you.” 

“ And which way would you rather love? ” 

“ I don’t want none of that yet,” said she. “ We 
gals has the best of it. I ain’t goin’ to marry this year, 
nor the next neither if I can help it.” 


CHAPTER IX 


Lyddon found that “ in the hollies ” at Thorneyhill 
was more than a mere expression. High and wind- 
blown as this gypsy village was, open to the moor on 
all four sides, the thicket of hollies which grew to the 
north of it had become an irregular labyrinth of thick 
bushes as close and impenetrable as yew hedges, in the 
midst of which a man might sleep in a gale and hardly 
be aware of it. In winter and summer these close- 
growing ramparts of dark green afforded shelter to a 
changing population of human creatures. 

Unless a man were acquainted with the gypsy art 
of knowing one bush or path from another, as a shep- 
herd knows one sheep from another, he might easily 
lose his way for a short time in the confusing maze 
of thick green bushes. To a person living in intimacy 
with Nature, however, no tree or bush is merely a 
tree or bush. Each has a separate individuality, a 
different contour, a distinctive appearance. It would 
be almost impossible for a gypsy to walk twice over 
the same ground in unfamiliar country without recog- 
nising it, even if the country were as bare as a prairie. 
He unconsciously notes a hundred landmarks of the 
most trivial description that would escape the observa- 
tion of a person bred to a town life. 

The hollies were more than a housing and shelter, 
however. At Christmas-time they furnished a means 
of livelihood, and the flower-sellers busied themselves 
with making wreaths and bunches of red-berried 
holly for sale when they went on their rounds in Christ- 
church and Bournemouth. 


104 


ALLWARD 


105 


Lyddon rigged up a tent in a little blind alley, a 
snug wind-protected corner of the labyrinth. He set 
it up as he had seen the gypsies — driving in the 
stakes, spreading the straw and old carpet, fitting the 
“ ranyors ” into roughly cut sockets in the ridge pole, 
and pinning the brown blankets together. 

She concerned herself with the fire, for which she 
took a sack of wood from the cart. 

“ You light the fire,” she commanded. “ I’m 
.off to get two-penn’orth of bread up at the shop 
and a penn-’orth of cheese, and to stop at Aunt 
Matilda’s and tell her we’ve a-come. Then I’ll come 
back.” , 

The fire proved very refractory, and Lyddon almost 
exhausted their slender supply of matches until he 
remembered that a piece of dead furze was as inflam- 
mable as tinder. But it blazed up and died out before 
the sticks were well alight, and he went in search of 
more — missing his way in the hollies as he came back 
laden, and running into another camp and into several 
impasses before he found his own retreat. By that 
time the fire was dead and black. He used the last 
remaining match, kept feeding the fire with pieces 
of dead furze, and at length got it well alight, 
just as Mary reappeared twenty minutes after 
her departure. He told her of his vicissitudes and she 
laughed. 

“ If I’d a-bin here, I lay I’d a-had it burning in less 
than a minute, damp wood or no damp wood. 
Wood’s always damp this time of year, but I don’t 
pay no heed to that. Yer! I got somethin’ good for 
’ee!” 

Her amber-brown eyes gleamed with merriment 
and she held something concealed under her torn 
apron. 


106 


ALLWARD 


“ What is it? ” he asked. 

“ Guess, then.” 

“ It can’t be the bread and cheese — the newspaper 
parcel under jour arm’s that.” 

She lifted the apron with a dramatic gesture and 
discovered a jug of beer. 

“ I went into Aunt Matilda’s on the way and she 
give me the bread and cheese, so I got a drop of levina 
up there in the village.” 

They sat down to their meal with great zest, and 
devoured great junks of good home-baked bread: 
even the cheap soapy cheese did not taste amiss. They 
passed the jug from one to another, and Lyddon, who 
had always been ultra-fastidious, forgot to wonder 
which side of it Mary’s lips had touched. But then 
they were very attractively curved, the lips of health 
itself. 

Then she wiped them on her sleeve, rolled 
cigarettes for herself and him, lit them from a stick, 
and sat back hugging her knees, her thin comely 
face glowing from the heat of the fire, the ale, and 
the fresh air. 

“And to-night,” said Lyddon, “ you’ll be sleeping in 
a house.” 

“ Not me,” she said. “ I shall put up a bit of a tent 
back of aunt’s house. I don’t keer for sleepin’ in a 
room, beside they’se crowded in theer as it is. Prissy’s 
married, but now the other two gals has a room to 
themselves.” 

“ Is your Aunt Matilda your father’s sister? ” 

“No, she wasn’t a James. She was my mother’s 
sister, look. Granny lives theer, too. Bed-ridden. 
But she’ve a-lost her mind lately, poor old ’ooman. 
Her name’s Lamb, Amelia Lamb. They’s granny and 
Aunt Matilda, and Em’ly, and Yi’let, and Alius, 


ALLWARD 107 

and the two boys left, beside Uncle Joe. And there’s 
on’y three rooms for the lot of ’em.” 

44 How on earth do they manage? ” he asked, watching 
her face. 

44 Well, Em’ly and Vi’let sleeps by themselves in a 
kind of loft place, and the boys sleeps long of Aunt 
and Uncle, and Alius sleeps long of Granny. Afore 
Prissy married she slept with Granny, too. When 
she was married, she married a young man name of 
James, a cousin of dad’s, and they set up in the 
garden back of aunt’s house in a tent. The night 
after the weddin’ Prissy goes up to granny and swears 
nothin’ ’d make her goo down to the tent. 4 I’m goin’ to 
sleep along o’ granny,’ she says. But they got her out 
into the garden and locked the door on her, and young 
James he carried her down to the tent hisself.” 

44 It was a marriage by capture. Why, was she afraid 
of her husband ? ” 

44 Got kind of shy. Gals is like that sometimes.” 

44 Is Prissy pretty, too.” 

44 She wuz. She’s got four chavis by now, and 
that’s made her thin. But she wuz never so pretty as 
Em’ly. Pris has got a cottage now, up over the hill, 
when we goo up to aunt’s you’ll see it. Well, I got to 
leave you now you’re settled, but I’ll come over afore 
supper-time and bring you a bit of summat. Here’s 
half a loaf, and the tea and tea-pot’s in there in the 
tent. If you wants anything, aunt’s house is just acrost 
from here, with a bit of green in front of it. You can’t 
miss it, it’s the on’y cottage this side.” 

44 1 shall miss you horribly.” 

She flushed, suddenly and unexpectedly. 44 When 
you wants me you’ve on’y got to goo outside of aunt’s 
and holler me.” 

44 What are you going to do this afternoon ? ” 


108 


ALLWARD 


“ Cut some pegs and help aunt dig up some primrose 
roots.” 

“.Well, if you were miles away digging up primroses 
I should holler in vain.” 

“ You got to goo and git some sticks. I’ve took the 
donkey up to aunt’s, but if you wants anything out 
of the cart, it’ll be in the shed beside the cottage. Yer, 

I must goo.” 

She rose, as if half-reluctantly, and dropped the end 
of the cigarette into the flames, holding her brown 
silver-ringed hands a moment to the blaze, though in the 
shelter it was not cold. 

“ Good-bye, Mary dear.” 

“ Good-bye, Adam. You needn’t mind leaving the 
tent. I knaws the people what’s camped near by, and 
I’ll drop a lav to one of the chavis to kip an eye on 
the fire.” 

Her comely figure and dark head disappeared . 
behind the thick hollies, and he was left with a feeling 
of abruptly ruptured companionship. A wave of 
sudden desire passed over him. He was possessed by 
the impulse for a minute to leap after her through the 
hollies, to seize her arms and bring her back, willy- 
nilly, with her sweet wide smile and her brown smoky 
hands. 

“And what then?” he asked himself, and with a 
flush as deep as her own had been he told himself he 
was several different kinds of fool. But her half- 
smoked cigarette had fallen short of the fire, and he 
took it up and placed it between his own lips, won- 
dering if it were an instinct of flight as sudden as his 
instinct of pursuit which had made her throw it away 
before she had finished it and leave him. There is 
never any pressing hurry in a gypsy’s life — her aunt 
would probably wait placidly enough until she 


ALLWARD 


109 


appeared. Then he turned the subject out of his mind 
deliberately. Mary was but a child, in spite of her 
would-be lover, and gulfs deeper , than the ocean and 
wider than the sky separated them. To cross them, 
even for a moment, would be to spoil their relationship 
one to another. Mary was lovable, Mary had an 
insidious charm which was something very difficult 
to define, and beneath her crudeness she had something 
like a soul. Well, it was no business of his. Sooner 
or later she would pass between the millstones ; the ex- 
periences of married life with an Alf Stace, or one like 
unto him, would grind the youth and the poetry out 
of her; and the savage fight for existence, the sordid 
struggle for bread for herself and her children, would 
coarsen her and rob her of her gentleness and her 
capacity for happiness. 

A chirping note, sharp, staccato and metallic, re- 
peated again and again, and a great fluttering of 
wings attracted his attention at last. He perceived a 
chaffinch with ruddy breast and flirting tail engaged 
in a love passage with its mate in the holly-bush just 
above his head. He saw the pursuit of the cock-bird, 
the mock flight, the provocative coquetry of the hen, 
and because he was so motionless they took no heed 
but continued their pretty courtship. High against 
the windy blue and white of the sky above him a lark 
was shrilling, his wings beating the air so rapidly 
that they looked like pinions of mist, rising by short 
ecstatic jerks and then sinking to earth in the sudden 
silence that follows supreme effort. Somewhere on the 
moor he had a nest, somewhere he had known the ecstasy 
of which he sang so brazenly, somewhere he had tasted 
the rapture of the spring. Lyddon felt curiously 
lonely. 

He had to walk far afield to collect his wood, and 


110 


ALLWARD 


returned at tea-time to find a ragged, touzle-headed 
urchin putting the last stick out of the sack into a 
dying fire. 

“ Mary ast me to kip up the fire,” said he. 

Lyddon remembered the twopence which the old 
stone-collector had given him two days before, and 
bestowed it upon the child, who lingered inquisi- 
tively. 

“ What’s your name, sonny? ” asked Lyddon, feeding 
the fire with the fresh supply of wood and setting 
the kettle on the “ kawi-kosht ” over it. 

“ Robert,” said the boy readily. 

“ Robert what ? ” 

“ Robert Sherratt.” 

“ Where are you camping? ” 

“ Back of yer.” He indicated with a dirty hand the 
thicknesses of holly. 

“ Did you fill the kettle ? ” 

“ No, Mary did. She come back yer after you’d 
a-gone. She said I was to tell you there’s a 
well in her aunt’s garden what you kin use if you 
wants.” 

“ Is Mary a cousin of yours ? ” 

“ No.” 

The grimy elf with his old-young face sat down on 
his heels by the blaze, chewing a stick. 

“ Where d’you come from?” he questioned in his 
turn. 

“ London,” said Lyddon. 

The boy grinned. “ I bin there onst,” he said. 

“ Did you like it ? ” 

“ We went to a Pieter Pallis,” said he, as if this 
were the sum total of all joys. “ Got a fag? ” he added 
shamelessly. 


ALLWARD 


111 


“ No. You can have some tea though, when the 
kettle’s boiled.” 

It did boil at last, and Lyddon made the tea, finding 
that Mary had left him two cups in the corner of the 
tent. Did this mean that she contemplated joining 
him? 

The boy and man ate and drank in silence, till the 
child said — 

“ Mother ’ve got a baby.” 

“ How old? ” 

“ Barn yestiddy. So they can’t move us on for a 
fortnight.” 

“ How many of you are there? ” 

“ Thirteen. Mother ’ve had fifteen, but two on ’em’s 
dead.” 

“ And how many tents have you got ? ” 

“We ain’t got but the one. A double one, look. 
Mother and father sleeps one side and us little ones 
the tother.” 

“ But how do you manage? ” 

“ Oh, we gits in some’ow. Kips each other warm.” 

Lyddon asked how his parents made enough to provide 
for them all. 

“ All sarts of ways. Father makes bee-pots and 
mother sells lace. Sometimes father works for the 
farmers, they’se glad of a little extry help in gettin’ 
in the crops or cartin’ hay, it has to be done quick, 
look.” 

The boy devoured his bread-and-butter hungrily, 
Lyddon could see that he was thin and ill-nourished. 
And yet when he compared the life these miserable 
wanderers led with the life they would lead in a slum, 
he found it infinitely preferable to leave them where 
they were. Here, at any rate, they had pure air, 
wholesome sunlight, the lore of the woods and moors, 


112 


ALLWARD 


and parents who worked too hard for their precarious 
living to indulge in frequent drinking bouts. 

Later on he accompanied the child to the tent. The 
man was working at some bee-pots which he said 
were ordered by the shop at Burley. His materials 
were of the simplest — brambles, split and peeled, and 
the tall bleached bennets which grow in fir woods. The 
woman, moved by curiosity, drew the tent covering aside 
and looked out at Lyddon, who bade her good-day, and 
asked her how she did. 

“ She’ll be up soon,” said the man. “ There’s not 
much amiss with her. She haves ’em very easy.” 

Half-a-dozen filthy children were playing in the 
mud. One boy of about three years old stood by the 
tent and put his tongue out at Lyddon, doing a kind 
of shuffling straddle-legged dance in the muddy straw, 
out of sheer impudence. His fair curls were very dirty- 
looking, his face was begrimed, his nose running. Yet 
he looked the picture of health, and the woman, in spite 
of her fifteen children and her fifty years of wandering, 
had not a grey hair in her head. 

“ Any time you wants to go away,” said the man, 
“ you come yer, and Robert or one of the others ’ll see 
yer things isn’t touched.” 

Lyddon thanked him and was conscious of their 
curiosity. They knew that he was not one of them- 
selves, and they also knew, evidently, that he was penni- 
less, for they did not ask him for money. 

He returned to the lonely tent and sat restlessly by 
the fire. The programme which Mary had sketched 
out for him — to start off on the roads as soon as the 
leaves were out, pleased him, but it was a long way 
off. Twilight had fallen, and the wind echoed and 
rustled in the hollies, accentuating, as did every small 
sound, the silence, the absence of human voices in the 


ALLWARD 


113 


tent. In vain he tried to think of other things, in 
vain he read and re-read the sheet of the Daily Mail 
in which the loaf of bread had been wrapped; all he 
could think of was the fact that very soon Mary would 
bring his supper, and that she might perhaps sit with 
him a little while in the firelight and talk, and smoke, 
and smile. He had always fled from people in the 
days when he had been obliged to meet his wife’s 
friends in the artificial life she preferred to any other. 
But now he was possessed by an absurd hunger for 
the sight of Mary’s thin vivid face, with its gentle, 
smiling eyes ; the mouth that curved upwards wistfully 
at the corners, and its shadowy untidy frame of 
plaited hair. The impenetrable hollies shut him in 
as in a prison of dark green. He would have blessed 
even Aunt Gerania’s brown and wrinkled countenance 
if it had appeared round the corner of the bushes, but 
by this time her van was drawn up for the night on 
some roadside or in some field between here and Parke- 
stone. 

There was a light noise, a crackling, a rustling. 
It must be Mary with his supper. No, it moved too 
irregularly, too loiteringly. He went to the opening to 
look. Coming down the narrow green-walled path 
in the light of the rising moon was a donkey-foal, 
a small, grey, shaggy creature, whose velvet nose 
sought delicately among the holly leaves and prickles, 
for young bramble leaves which it plucked with a 
lifting of its lips and a gentle tug. At the sight of 
Lyddon it walked leisurely back to its invisible dam. 
Lyddon sat down again to wait. A renewed rustling, 
a footfall, a broken stick — something human was 
coming at last! There was the gleam of an apron, 
and then — into the circle of the firelight a little girl 
bearing a plate carefully covered with another. 


ALLWARD 


m 

She came to the tent. 

“ I’m Alius,” she said. “ Yer’s some stew for you, 
and is there anythink else you wants, please, Mary 
says.” 

There was nothing but Mary herself. He thanked 
the little maiden who looked at him with brown eyes 
round with interest. 

“No, I ’ad some,” she said when he thanked her and 
offered her some of the savoury mess. 

“ You are like Mary,” he said, looking into the child’s 
face, for she was dark and pretty and clean. 

“ She’s me cousin, look,” said Alice, and relapsed 
into silence, devouring him with a comprehensive stare 
which took note of every detail. She watched him eat 
and refused to be drawn into conversation, answering 
only “ Yes ” or “ No ” to all his efforts. 

Only after he had finished, she volunteered — 

“ I can jump.” 

He was somewhat nonplussed. 

“ Jump, can you? ” 

She nodded. “ I can jump higher nor any one in 
Tharneyhill.” 

“ That’s something to be proud of.” 

“ Like to see me? ” she asked. 

“ Of course.” 

“Well, you hold out one of they sticks. Hold it 
a bit lbw at fust, an’ you see.” 

He held it as high as his knee. 

“ That’s nuthink,” she exclaimed scornfully. 
“ Higher!” 

He moved the stick up as far as his thigh. 

“ That’ll do to start with,” she approved, and leapt 
it lightly and easily, though her boots were 
clumsy. 

He held it higher. She cleared it. As high as his 


ALLWARD 


115 


waist, almost up to his shoulder. The little creature 
was over, her heels just clicking against the stick. 
Then she desisted, red-faced, panting and smiling, 
while he applauded. 

“ Mary said I could show you, if you ast me,” said 
she naively. 

“ What has Mary been doing? ” 

“ Out with mother. Where you bin? ” 

He described to her his walk in search of wood. 

“ Oh, you bin down Holmesley. There’s lots of 
wood ’bout now — they big winds brings down the 
sticks.” 

They conversed a little and then she remarked — “ I 
must goo now.” 

“ It’s not late.” 

“We goes to bed early. Oh, I most forgot 1 Uncle 
Sam sent word by Tom Pidgeley that you was to goo 
up to Miss Price’s to-morrer about seven o’clock and 
see Mr. Brushwood up there, what’s putting up a place 
for her. His man what does the carpentering ’ve fallen 
sick, an’ uncle spoke for you yestiddy when he seen 
Mr. Brushwood down at Burley. So if you goes up, 
you may get the job. It’s up on the main road — any 
one ’ll tell you where Miss Price do live. There’s 
another carpenter at Tharneyhill, but a lot of ’em’s 
working up at Lord Redfield’s, and he’d a-have to get a 
man from Christchurch.” 

“ I’ll go,” said Lyddon, after a pause. 

“ Mary says, mind you does,” said Alice. 

u You’re fond of Mary? ” 

“ She’s awright,” Alice replied in a tone that might 
have been Mary’s own. 

“ I tell you what — if I do get the j ob, I’ll get a big 
cake at the village shop the first time I get my wages, 
and we’ll have a tea-party.” 


116 


ALLWARD 


She received the proposition coolly. “ It’ll have to 
be a big un,” she observed, “ if we all comes.” 

“ Two, then, if the funds run to it.” 

“ You should see what we gets through at a Sunday 
School treat,” said she fervently. 

“ You go to Sunday School? ” 

“ Course. What d’you think I They gives us a tree 
at Christmas. But I mustn’t stay yer talkin’.” 

She prepared to take her leave. 

“ Good-night, then,” said he. 

“ Good-night. Mind you don’t oversleep yerself. 
Shall I come and holler you in the mornin’ ? ” 

“ There’s no need to do that. I wake early.” 

He did not offer to escort her back, and she dis- 
appeared into the darkness as silently as a wild 
animal. 

He sat awhile by the embers of the fire, and then, 
as it grew chilly, undressed by its dying glow and lay 
down to sleep. 


CHAPTER X 


The house in which Miss Price lived was upon the 
highest shoulder of the hill. She had chosen it be- 
cause of its pure air and its view over Hampshire and 
Dorset, for she could see the Isle of Purheck and 
Four Barrow Down with Poole Harbour glittering 
between on any clear day, and even the Isle of Wight, 
as well as miles of heath and forest. The view was 
her delight and pride, she thought it the finest in the 
county. She loathed two products of the times more 
than anything else on God’s earth: one was the 
motor-car and the other the jerry builder. Neither 
troubled her much at Cloudy Gate, which was the 
name of her house. In the summer, it is true, excur- 
sion brakes from Bournemouth and the motor-cars of 
pleasure-seekers passed the house and reduced her to 
impotent rage, but the length of a front garden 
separated her from the monstrosities, and from her top 
windows she had outlook over as big a stretch of wild 
country as any to be found in the southern counties 
— almost houseless, as she put it. To hear her talk, 
though she was the kindest of souls, you would 
imagine that Miss Price wished to deprive all human 
beings but herself of habitations. Cottages she par- 
doned, provided they were mud-built and thatched, 
but the red-brick erections of the commercial builder 
were to her a crime, a desecration. Mr. Brushwood, 
being a builder, was looked upon by her with deep 
suspicion and as much resentment as she could 
harbour against any one whom she really knew, for 
he was responsible for a row of red-brick, slate-roofed 
117 


118 


ALLWARD 


buildings in the village. Nevertheless she had com- 
missioned him to build a new coach-house and stable 
in her garden, the old stabling quarters being dilapidated 
and ruined. She had, therefore, made truce with the 
enemy, having need of him, but preserved a genial 
hostility in speaking to him. 

“ The old gal’ll come and talk to you as like as not 
while you’re working,” said Brushwood to Lyddon, 
after he had agreed to give him a trial. “ Don’t you 
mind what she says. Always givin’ advice, she is. 
You just say, ‘ Yes, ’m,’ and do what you likes 
about it.” 

Lyddon was to use the other man’s tools, and he 
set to work cheerfully. To work with his hands was 
natural to him, after his apprenticeship. All passed 
off well. Brushwood, who was his own foreman, 
commended him grudgingly and gave him to understand 
that he could come again on the morrow. Lyddon dis- 
covered that he had forgotten to bring his luncheon 
with him, and as he felt disinclined to go back and hunt 
up food in his tent, he decided to wait with an empty 
stomach till six o’clock. But at half-past four, as he 
was planing some boards, a small and neat-figured old 
woman came out to him. She wore a black skirt and 
grey blouse, with an ancient rush hat that a tramp 
would have discarded. 

“ Are you Brushwood’s new man? ” 

“ Yes, ’m,” replied Lyddon, with a smile flickering 
into the eyes which he kept downcast. 

She looked at him sharply. 

“ You were working in your lunch-hour,” she said 
accusingly, turning bright, grey eyes upon him. 

He felt like a school-boy detected in a misdemeanour, 
and stuttered an explanation. 

“ Well, you’d better go into the kitchen now and have 


ALLWARD 


119 


a cup of tea,” said she, cutting him short. “ I always 
give workmen about the place their tea, as I suppose 
you may have heard.” 

“ Yes, ’m,” Lyddon got out, though it was untrue. 

But she still lingered. 

“ You are a stranger to these parts.” 

“ Yes, ’m.” 

“ And an educated man, are you not? ” 

Lyddon replied that he could read and write. 

She snapped him up impatiently. “ Nonsense, you 
were at a public school — you can’t deceive me. What 
was it, drink? You are young to have knuckled 
under.” 

<fi Yes, ’m.” His head was raised now, and he tried 
to assume the proper tone of humility. 

“ Don’t answer like a parrot,” said she. “ I want to 
warn you not to drink while you’re here. There’s 
nothing like a good meal to keep you from that tempta- 
tion, and while you are working on my premises you’ll 
go into the kitchen and eat a good square meal at mid- 
day, and a good tea, too; do you understand? I don’t 
want to run any risks. You are in the purest air in 
Hampshire — and we’ve the finest view; don’t spoil the 
one by beery breath, or the other by the spectacle of 
a man who’s made a hog of himself. Are you in want 
of money? ” 

“ No, ’m.” 

66 If you are — or if you are in trouble, you need not 
fear to speak out to me. I am an old woman, and 
I’ve heard a good deal of trouble in my time. Had 
some, too. You couldn’t shock me if you were to try. 
Think that over, and go in to tea.” 

He went in, somewhat bewildered, and considerably 
ashamed of himself for deceiving so likeable an old 
woman. 


120 


ALLWARD 


A silent, elderly maid, who wore no cap, took his 
advent as a matter of course, and placed a large cup 
of tea, a plate of ham and a loaf of bread before him. 
He ate enough for two, he had not known how hungry 
he was until he started, neither had he tasted such food 
for a long time. 

When he stopped work at six he was tired. The 
long physical exertion, coming on top of his illness 
as it did, had exhausted him, mind and body. Heavy 
rain had fallen during the day, and a fine drizzle was 
falling as he put his tools together, walked down the 
main road, turned off towards the post-office and 
school, and then struck off across a strip of Forest to 
the hollies. He had left word with the Sherratts not 
to keep the fire burning, and he did not relish the 
prospect of returning to the cheerlessness of a chilly 
tent this wet evening. The ground was already muddy, 
his boots left the track with a sucking sound, water 
was standing on the paths, and there was a constant 
and depressing dripping as he made his way through 
the holly bushes. The familiar smell of wood-smoke 
reached him; from the Sherratts’ camp, he reflected 
with envy. But when he turned the corner of the bushes 
which led to his own retreat, he saw that the 
smoke, beaten down by the damp gusts and wreath- 
ing in blue rings through the holly which rose above it, 
was issuing from his own tent. But the tent was silent 
as a tomb. 

He stooped and looked in, and saw Mary fast asleep 
on the sacking and carpet by the fire, her dark head 
against a bundle, her arms flung abroad and limp, 
her attitude relaxed, her muddy boots obstructing the 
entrance. He stepped over them, and sat himself in 
the opposite half of the tent, fearful of waking her. 
Poor child, she lay there in the utter abandon of 


ALLWARD 


121 


fatigue. Her battered hat was pushed aside, her 
cotton blouse was open, showing her brown neck and 
the red beads around it. He watched with interest 
a pulse that moved softly and regularly in her throat, 
and the gold earring that gleamed beneath her 
untidy dark hair. She sighed and stirred, he held 
himself mute. Then an acorn or something else 
exploded in the fire with a report like that of a gun. 
She stirred again, and this time opened her eyes 
sleepily. 

44 I bin asleep ! ” she exclaimed in surprise, sitting 
up with a jerk and feeling for her hat. 44 Why didn’t 
you wake me? ” 

44 It would have been a shame l ” 

44 I don’t know why. I came over sleepy while I 
was waiting for you. I always feels that way after 
a day’s hawkin’. I bin to see how you was gettin’ on. 
An’ I got you a bit of meat in Bournesmouth for your 
supper ; it’s there in the kavvi.” 

44 You’ve been to Bournemouth ! ” he cried, 
surprised. 

44 Yes. ’Tis the day aunt and the gals goes in to 
sell flowers.” 

44 But it’s thirteen or fourteen miles away.” 

44 We on’y walks as fur as Christchurch — that’s eight 
miles, and then we takes the tram to Bournesmouth. 
Aunt haves her reg’lar customers round Boscombe way, 
and after we’ve got the fresh flowers at the market, we 
walks around, an’ I sells my pegs where I can, and then 
we walks back.” 

44 Even then you must have walked quite twenty 
miles.” 

She lifted the lid of the pot to take a look at the 
meat inside. 

44 1 dar say. We’se used to it, look. We was off 


m 


ALLWARD 


before five this marning, or I’d ’ve come to see what you 
was doin’. I kep’ on a-wonderin’ all day how you was 
gettin’ on up at Price’s. Have they took you 
on? ” 

“ Yes.” He had lost interest in his own affairs, 
touched and ashamed because the girl had troubled, at 
the end of so long a day, to come to his tent to see after 
his comfort. 

“ How much are they givin’ you? ” 

“ Fifteen shillings a week.” 

“ That’s half what they gives the other man, I’ll 
lay.” 

“ It’ll more than keep me. I’ll hand over a sub- 
stantial sum to you soon,” he said. “ If I’m to be 
treated as one of the family, I shall contribute to the 
family purse.” 

“ You leave that alone,” she said gruffly. “ What 
you has you’se welcome to. You ain’t eat much to- 
day though; there’s that half loaf I sent down not 
cut into.” 

He told her of Miss Price’s hospitality. 

“ She’s a funny old gal,” said Mary. “ Worth more 
than all the other Gaujis round here put together. 
She’s very fond of Aunt Matilda and Uncle Joseph, 
and she gives he a job when she can in the garden. 
She’s kind of cracked about Romany chavis, and she’ve 
a-quarrelled at the keepers about some of our folks, 
one time and ’nother. She thinks the world of aunt. 
She’ve a-offered to fit out Alius for service and find 
her a place.” 

Lyddon remembered the colt-like young creature 
who had leapt over the stick for him, and doubted 
Miss Price’s wisdom in this. 

“ Got a van, too, she have,” continued Mary, taking 
the pot off the fire. “ Bought it off a man called 


ALLWARD 


123 

White, what lives in Christchurch. He’s a reg’lar 
Romany, he is, but he lives in a cottage now. ’Twas 
an old van, an’ she do use it to have tea in now and 
agen. Don’t travel in it, though there’s lot of gentle- 
folk what does that now, in the summer. Where you 
put the plates? I ain’t had my supper yet, I allowed 
I’d have it with you.” 

“ I hoped you would last night,” said he, receiving 
his portion. 

“ I had it with aunt,” said she stolidly. 

“ The tent felt very empty without you.” 

“Did you want me?” she asked, reddening, without 
looking up from her operations at the pot. 

“ I think I did.” 

“ If it didn’t go no further than thinkin’ — — ” 

“ Well, I wanted you — badly,” he said in lower 
tones. 

“ I’m here now,” she said, in a somewhat muted voice, 
passing him his plate without looking at him. “ You 
see — here they all knows aunt — and me — and they might 
get talkin’ — ’sif you and me was behavin’ as we 
shouldn’t. They mumpers lives any’ow, but our lot’ve 
always — — ” 

There was a small silence. 

Then he smiled angrily across the fire. “ There’s not 
much difference between your people and any other 
people, after all, when it comes to gossip.” 

“ No, they always talks.” 

“ Well, my dear child, we’d best not give them cause. 
You mustn’t come to the tent. I shall have to see you 
now and again.” 

She lifted her lowered head with a quick movement like 
that of a pony. 

“ I don’t care what they says,” she exclaimed 
with sudden defiance. “ There’s no harm in lookin’ 


m ALLWARD 

in, and why should we heed what ain’t true any- 
ways ? ” 

He stirred the fire with vague irritation, vague 
hostility towards the outside world. He shut his ears 
to the warning prick of his conscience. If he cut loose 
from Mary now, that delightful setting off with her 
in the leaf-time would have to be put aside. He men- 
tally pooh-poohed his own misgiving. He tried to for- 
get the moment of alarm last night when his pulses had 
throbbed the quicker on her account. 

44 I believe you’re right,” he said. 44 I expect they 
don’t realise what a middle-aged married man you have 
been charitable to. And, after all, you’re a child.” 

She knitted her brows at that. 44 No, I ain’t,” she 
said. 44 Prissy wasn’t no older than me when she got 
married.” 

44 Is that the cousin who ran away from her husband 
on her wedding night ? ” he asked absently. 

“ Yes, that’s the one. Besides, you wants a girl to 
come and clean for you, and wash out your shirts, and 
that.” 

44 I could do it myself.” 

“ Not so well as me. And if you give me the money to 
get what you wants, look, I could always cook your bit 
of supper.” 

“ I’ll hand over all I earn to you, if you keep me in 
food and ’baccy.” 

Thus, mutually, the matter was settled. 

“ I was silly to tell you ’bout the folks talkin’,” she 
said after a while. 44 You see my aunt, she don’t like 
Aunt Gerany much, they quarrels whenever they gets 
together, and some travellers told her there was a 
man livin’ with us up at the Bushes, and that he 
was after me. So aunt kep’ me from cornin’ last 
night 


ALLWARD 


125 


“ I shall come and see this aunt,” he said grimly. 

“ Don’t you tell her I told you. She doesn’t know 
that you’re a gennleman, look, and not a traveller. I 
told her you was married, but I was afraid to tell her 
you was a gennleman, for fear there’d be talk, and the 
police would get on to you.” 

He understood that she had sheltered him at her own 
expense. 

“ I’ll see her and tell her I’m an artist.” 

Her brow cleared. 44 Yes, maybe she’d believe 
that.” 

“ She must be made a friend of mine,” said he. 44 I 
don’t want to lose you like that. Think of to-night, if 
it hadn’t been for you, I should have come to a dead fire, 
a damp, lonely tent — — ” 

44 And instead you finds a lumpin’ girt rakli sleepin’ 
by the yog,” said she, with one of her sweetest, most 
brilliant smiles. 

44 And a supper,” he added prosaically. 

44 It’s a martel good supper, too,” said she, ladling it 
out on to two plates. Then they fell to, and when a bone 
proved inconvenient, she nibbled it. He watched her, 
and she put down the bone with a smile. 

44 There’s some bones that’s ak’erd,” said she, half 
apologetically. 44 It do sim a pity to let the sweetest 
meat goo, though. I knows gentlefolks on’y uses 
their knives and farks, but they doesn’t care what they 
wastes. Why, a girl in service told me that what 
they throws away in a wik ’ud keep a fam’ly like the 
Sherratts yer a month. They don’t do nothin’ to arn 
what they eats, look — that’s where ’tis, and so they 
don’t knaw the value of it.” 

44 1 expect Adam and Eve ate that way,” he said. 
44 With their fingers, I mean.” 

44 Well, you’re Adam and I’m Eve, so there you 


ALLWARD 


1 26 

are, look. I wonder where they picked their sticks to 
make their bits of yog with in that there Garden ! 
There ain’t much wood lyin’ ’bout in most gardens, 
they’se too tidy. I don’t suppose they two had a 
house, d’you? They lived out-o’-doors, like you an’ 
me. You might say they was Romany chals, now 
mightn’t you? with no gavmushes or keepers to tarn 
’em out. But in the end they was moved on — '’cos they 
got stealin’.” 

“ And Romany chals have never been known to 
take what isn’t theirs, have they?” he said half mali- 
ciously. 

“ What does it matter — thieves or no thieves, we’se 
treated like as if we was. Yes, they was the first 
gypsy folk, sure enough, in a way of speakin’. All they 
Bible folk was in the beginning. They lived in tents, 
and shifted about like what we does. Then they took 
to houses. But we ain’t done that yet — not most of us ; 
nor never will, I hopes.” 

“ Where did you learn so much Bible history ? ” 

“ Up at school. And I has a Bible wdiat granny 
used to dooker with — dad’s mammy, not the old gal 
up yer.” 

“ Dooker with a Bible l How did she do that? ” 

“ I dunno,” said she. “We little uns was all afraid 
of she. She was deligious, look, as Aunt Gerany 
a-told you, but if she wanted to curse you, she could 
curse you in a way’s other folks ’ud tremble to yer, 
because she’d all them Bible texes pat in ’er mouth. 
There was a bit she’d a-say backwards over one keeper 
what was a hard man and sarved us bad, and sure 
enough, he never knew what luck was from that day 
on. And she enj’yed frightenin’ folk now and agen 
with her queer ways. Once, when I was a bit of a thing 
and the others was all little too, she and mother and 


ALLWARD 127 

dad and all of us was up ag’in Portsmouth. There was 
a mulleni castle there.” 

“A what? — oh, a haunted castle. Yes, go on.” 

“ A mulleni castle,” she repeated in a hushed voice, 
glancing for an instant at the growing dusk and the 
silent hollies outside. The wind rustled, and the sticks 
in the fire cracked and spat in the flames. “ Well, 
’twas gettin’ late, and we little ones was cryin’ for 
want of sleep and a bit of somethin’ to put in our bellies, 
and we didn’t know where to atch for the night. 
There was nowhere on the road where we could atch, 
because if we’d a-put up by the side of the road the 
gavmushes’d a-come arter us. We was tired, as I’ve 
a-said, and the night had come. So mother says, mullos 
or no mullos she’d atch where we was, up ag’in the 
castle.” 

“ How did she know it was haunted? ” 

“ Every one knawed that. Folks had dikked the 
mullos. A giant useter to live there years agoo, and 
was killed there — a giant.” 

“ I never heard of such a castle.” 

“ I lay there’s some things yet as you haven’t heerd 
of.” 

“ I hope there are. Well? ” 

“ There wasn’t no help for it, and there we had to 
atch, and the boys they kep’ on talking about the 
mullos. Mother she chukkered down the straw and 
the mattress and put in a couple of stakes and had 
up a shelter for us little ones in ha’f a minute, while 
dad took the horse out of the cart. And while they 
was busy, no one gave so much as a look at the old 
’ooman. But she went to the poppas, and got a girt 
sheet and threw it auver her head, and jailed up to 
the girt gate what the giant used to come through 
out of the rumpken, and down she come towards us 


128 


ALLWARD 


in the dark. Then one of the boys give a scream and 
called to us to look, and some begun to cry and holler, 
and mother she sat as if she was frightened stiff. 
Dad stood there with the bucket in his hand, swearin’. 
4 Let it pass, let it pass ! ’ says my mother, and we 
all pressed up ag’in the hedge more dead than alive, 
while grann} 7 was walking down without a word, the 
girt white sheet auver her. She got frightened her- 
self at last, and off with the sheet, but ’twas past a 
joke, an’ not a wink of sleep does we get that night, 
what with us children cryin’ an’ all. Dad would have 
given her what for, but he darsen’t never say a word 
to she, look.” 

44 She sounds a jolly unpleasant old woman,” said 
Lyddon. 

44 She could be sweet as sugar when she wished. 
Many’s the time she’ve made folks what was goin’ to 
quarrel laugh fit to bust auver summat she’d a-say, 
funny-like. The gentlefolk used to come miles 
to ta’ak to she, and she never cared what she said to 
’em.” 

“ Which side of the family do you take after? ” he 
inquired. 

“ I dunno. The granny I was telling you ’bout was 
a pretty gal when she was young — all the fellers was 
after her. But I’m not pretty like that.” 

44 You’re pretty enough.” 

“ Think so, Adam? ” said she, with a certain grave 
intensity. “ I’d like you to think I was pretty.” 

44 Why? ” he asked, breaking a stick and putting it 
on the fire. 

44 1 dunno. Because you knaws what’s pretty — 
because I likes you to think I’m nice-lookin’, though 
I ain’t what you’se accustomed to. I wish me mouth 
wasn t so big. That’s not like old Granny James. 


ALLWARD 129 

She’d a nice mouth when she was young, so I’ve 
a-yeerd.” 

She sank into a kind of reverie, her knees drawn up 
in her favourite attitude, her face lit up by the spas- 
modic flame-light. Whatever her mouth was, it was 
sweet and provocative, Lyddon thought, as he glanced 
at her. There was something about the upturned 
corners that expressed for him Mary’s peculiar charm, 
her smiling gentleness, her natural breeding and her 
“ earthiness,” as he called the vague, magnetic quality 
which so eluded his analysis. 

“ I must goo — look how dark it’s got,” said she, 
rising. 

“ But it’s raining — hark ! ” 

“ I ain’t afraid of a bit of wet.” 

She rose, and he got up too, and followed her 
into the wet grass and patch of furze brake just 
outside. 

“You cornin’?” she said, with a note of sur- 
prise. 

“ I’m going to see you through the hollies.” 

She made no motion of assent or dissent. 

It was raining fast, and the paths, so narrow that 
they had to walk in single file, were almost pitch-dark. 
Mary went first. 

“ I’m glad you’ve a-come,” said she stolidly. 
“ Whenever I bin talkin’ ’bout Granny James, I get 
a feelin’ she’s ’bout yer somewheres. And she might 
like to frighten folks still, if she was. I lay that’s 
what some mullos sets out to do, and laughs to their- 
selves when they see the live folk screamin’ and 
shiverin’.” 

Just then she came to a sudden standstill, and uttered 
a muffled shriek. He caught her arms. 

“ What is it? ” 


130 


ALLWARD 


“ There’s something touched me in the bushes,” she 
muttered hoarsely. 

There was indeed a rustling, a sound of parted foliage. 
In the shelter of his coat Lyddon struck a match, and 
for a second illuminated the dark alley with its tiny 
flame, which went out immediately. But it was alight 
long enough to elucidate the cause of alarm. A couple 
of yards in front, his grey hide soaked with rain, was 
the baby-donkey — hardly less scared than Mary her- 
self. He threw up his heels scampishly, and trotted 
away in the mud. 

“ On’}' a myla — after all,” said Mary, with a trem- 
bling breath of relief. She let him take the front place 
without a murmur, and in a moment they had reached 
a broader path where they could walk side by side. 
She walked close to him as if by instinct, and slipped 
her smoky little hand into his arm. He took it in his, 
and stuck his fist into his pocket. So they walked along 
in silence but for the soggy noise their wet feet made 
in the fast-filling pools. And the little smoke-scented 
hand which he held in the dry shelter of his coat-pocket, 
was sweet to the touch. 


CHAPTER XI 


He awoke to the familiar sound of falling rain and 
drumming water-drops, the steady patter against 
myriad leaves, the tinkle of drippings into gathering 
water near by. It was scarcely light and he lay where 
he was in the drowsy shelter of his blankets and the 
coat, which under treatment had achieved disreputa- 
bility ; and listened to the insistent downpour, 
thinking with the lazy vagueness characteristic of 
the hour. 

Conscience holds slack reins over a man in the 
morning, and he let himself remember the smoky 
little hand which had sought shelter in his the night 
before. In imagination he was haunted by its warm 
little ghost, and by other ghosts, too — by the ghost of 
red beads lying like berries against a brown warm 
throat; by the ghost of the pulse that had beat in that 
same throat like the heart of a bird. No, Mary was 
wrong and her forefathers were right — things had 
ghosts as well as persons, for the ghost of the silver 
ring as he had felt it on her fingers as he held them was 
with him, too. 

Lyddon had a certain simplicity of outlook that 
belongs to a man whom simple things attract most. 
He set himself to face the problem of Mary with a 
sincerity almost laughable. 

Then he said solemnly and sleepily to himself: 
“ You are to keep sentiment away. Such things are 
over for you once and for all. You will spoil every- 
thing and drive yourself back to facts you are trying 
to forget if you fool yourself for one instant.” 

131 


132 


ALLWARD 


In fact he was free as long as he was wise enough 
to keep his head, and if he couldn’t keep that he was 
a fool indeed. He was not in love with Mary, nor had 
he the slightest intention of philandering with her. He 
was not a philanderer. In spite of an unhappy marriage 
he had never gone seriously out of his way for another 
woman — in fact, most women did not attract him at 
all. He was beginning to realise that Mary, half savage 
as she was, had something in her which did attract 
him, attracted him as inevitably as the lodestone attracts 
iron. He was not rash enough to try to find out in what 
the attraction consisted. Perhaps it was part of the 
vagabond instinct in him, the instinct which raised long- 
ing in him for open skies when he was beneath a roof, 
that made him love the society of trees more than the 
society of men, that put the desire for wandering into 
his long legs. 

Full of morning philosophy, he lit his fire, dressed, 
and brewed his morning tea. The rain showed no 
intention of ceasing. Outside the skies were grey; 
hopeless and drenched, he left for work in a downpour. 
Miss Price called him in from the shed during the 
morning. She had an electric-bell installation, and 
something was wrong with it. Did he understand 
electric bells? (Did he, Richard Lyddon, understand 
electric bells !) He put it right and Miss Price hovered 
up about him, her eyes bright with curiosity. She was 
filled with pique that he had made no confidence in 
her. The broken-down gentleman, except in fiction, 
is usually lavish of confidences. Neither is he, as 
Lyddon was, unusually efficient. 

“ I saw Mary James’s aunt, Matilda Jeff, this 
morning,” she said to him, fixing her sharp kindly 
gaze upon him. “ She tells me you’ve been camping 
with the Jameses.” 


ALLWARD 


133 


“ Yes, I have,” said Lyddon, somewhat annoyed. 

“Well, the Jameses are very nice people, and so are 
the Jeffs. Joseph Jeff, Mary’s uncle, has worked for 
me for years.” 

To this Lyddon made no reply. He suspected that 
Matilda Jeff, Mary’s aunt, had spoken to Miss Price, 
and felt annoyed. 

“ Matilda tells me you are an artist.” 

Lyddon turned on her. “ I don’t see that it matters 
to any one who I am, as long as my business doesn’t 
interfere with theirs.” 

“ That’s just where you are w T rong,” said the old 
lady triumphantly. “ It matters a lot, and I’ll tell you 
why. I am glad to see you can get in a temper. It 
confirms me in my opinion of you.” 

Lyddon could not help smiling at this. “ What is 
your opinion, then? ” 

“ Well, you pose badly. The broken-down gentle- 
man is in no respect like you. As a rule he’s a help- 
less creature, and you are not. On the other hand 
you are obviously not a workman. Neither are you an 
escaped convict. There is nothing shifty about you or 
your eyes, and there is nothing criminal-looking 
about you. I thought at first it was drink, but I 
spoke after superficial judgment. Your hand is too 
steady.” 

“ Well, Matilda Jeff told you I was an artist, didn’t 
she? ” said Lyddon, with a certain impatience as well as 
amusement. 

“ I’d stake my immortal soul you’ve never held a 
brush between your fingers. No — you couldn’t.” 

“ Really, Miss Price,” said Lyddon, gazing at her 
steadfastly. “ I don’t see why you are so interested 
in me.” 

“ Neither do I. Still the fact remains that you are 


134 


ALLWARD 


playing a part. A gentleman has no right to be living 
like a tramp, because it isn’t fair on the tramps. I 
don’t want the Jeffs upset. There is talk about you and 
Mary James. NW I don’t know if you realise that 
Mary has a character to lose? Why, people like the 
Jameses and Jeffs are as particular about their women- 
kind as we are about ours. When the soldiers were 
camped near here, Joseph got his cart and drove his 
wife and daughters right away from the place. He 
knew he had a good-looking wife and pretty daughters, 
and he wasn’t going to risk them.” 

“ I don’t see where this concerns me.” 

“ You will in a minute. Mary is a very pretty girl. 
People say that you are dangling after her. I want 
you to know that so far she is a virtuous girl, too, and 
I don’t want her head turned.” 

Lyddon flushed with sudden anger. 

“ I’m afraid I don’t understand -” 

“ Don’t let your temper master you. And go on 
working. Twisting that wire will relieve you. You 
can pretend it’s my neck you are twisting off if you 
like.” 

But Lyddon still stood facing her. 

“ My dear man,” said she soothingly, “ don’t take 
me for a gossip, or for one who revels in it. Perhaps 
you are not in the least attracted to Mary. Still if you 
spend all your time with her, and go up country with 
them, as Matilda Jeff says you mean to do, you’ll bring 
talk upon the girl. I don’t know if her parents were 
married in church. Many of the gypsies are not, still 
they troth themselves after their own fashion and have 
a strict code of morality. We had a fool of a writer 
down here last year, who was hunting up Romany. 
He certainly knew a foreign language, but he knew 
nothing of the nature of the people here. He looked 


ALLWARD 


135 


upon every camp and caravan as a possible vocab- 
ulary. Well, he made love to a girl here, one of the 
Christchurch Burtons. She got her head turned, and 
her lover, a man of her own class, was jilted. The 
writing creature went, and the girl is now shunned 
by every one. That bull in a china shop with his nose 
stuck out for copy was a member of a society for 
collecting gypsy lore. I hope you’re not one of the 
same breed.” 

“ Good Lord ! ” said Lyddon, “ I never belonged to 
any society in my life except — — ” He checked him- 
self, for he was a member of the Royal Society. “ If 
I can’t camp here without setting every tongue in the 
neighbourhood wagging,” he went on, “ it’s a pity. 
Mary comes to help me now r and again, but she 
is half my age. Also I am married and Mary 
knows it. Anyway, I’ve not the slightest intention 
of altering my plans to suit any busybody in the 
place.” 

“ Now you are rude.” 

“ I may be ruder if you say any more,” he said 
politely. 

“ Come in and have your tea. We’ll say no more 
about it. You see I am an old woman without any 
children to bother about, and I have a strain in me 
which makes me love these Forest hawkers. I’ve 
fought their battles for them many a time, and it makes 
me angry when people come to try to persuade them to 
give up their perfectly healthy form of life, or to pump 
progress into them, or to make them self-conscious. 
I love them because they are a living embodiment of 
conservatism. They haven’t changed in their habits 
because one fool invented School Boards and another 
wireless telegraphy.” 

Lyddon found himself forgiving her. 


136 


ALLWARD 


So the days went on. It rained without ceasing. 
Lyddon was obliged to move his tent to higher ground, 
as the site he had originally chosen became sodden. 
One day the rain changed into sleet, and the next 
morning an inch of snow lay on the ground. Lyddon 
had never camped out in winter before, but he was 
amazed to find that a well-constructed tent can be as 
warm as a house, even warmer than most houses, and 
that he did not feel the cold at night. 

In his almost daily intercourse with Mary a dan- 
gerous point seemed to have been reached and passed 
over without disaster. The shyness that might have 
sprung up between them, thanks to the suggestions of 
busybodies, was swallowed up in the many things 
they had in common. He grew accustomed to seeing 
her by his tent fire, to hearing her account of the 
day’s luck in Boscombe when she came back weary 
from her long tramp in and back, to seeing her prepare 
the evening meal which she usually shared with him ; and 
to handing her his weekly wages which she eked out 
with thrift and frugality. Her visits to Bournemouth 
took place two or three times a week. He also made 
the acquaintance of her aunt, a hard-featured, sharp- 
tongued, self-respecting gypsy woman whose fairness 
showed a certain admixture of cottage blood, though 
her children were as dark as gypsies of the purest 
strain. Mrs. Jeff was a wit, too, and her wit sharpened 
itself at the expense of her neighbours. Finding that 
her niece was not to be moved as regards Lyddon, 
she made the best of it, and told people there wasn’t 
no harm in he, he was trying to earn his bit of bread, 
and he paid our Mary to look after the tent and cook 
him something in the evening, which was just what she 
might have said in the beginning had she been amiably 
disposed. 


ALLWARD 


137 


As for Lyddon, a man who can analyse his feelings 
towards a woman fancies himself safe. He knew that 
Mary’s charm for him lay not so much in any physical 
affinity, but because she embodied for him the forest 
he loved, because she had come into his life like some- 
thing untamed and fugitive from the woods, because she 
was wholesome and clean and wild as a bog-stream is 
clean and wild. 

The rat-catcher, whose movements were always 
irregular, had apparently moved yet farther away on 
business of his own. Aunt Gerania wrote Mary a letter, 
by the hand of her daughter at Heavenly Bottom, stat- 
ing that she would stay a bit longer, until a baby which 
her daughter expected was born. 

So March came and went, and April came, and with 
it the gorse-bloom. Lyddon found a strange fascina- 
tion in the holly thickets — the holms, as they were called. 
He found it possible to walk for miles in and out of 
thick-walled chambers in this maze of ancient hollies, 
here and there thinned out, where a fire had devas- 
tated them. The fires, Mary told him, occurred 
annually, in spite of the precautions taken by the 
authorities to set the keepers to watch. Mrs. Jeff 
declared boldly that it was “ the keepers did it their- 
selves, because the furze grows so thick that they can’t 
get through easily where they has to go.” Still in 
this thicket of holly trees, in places absolutely im- 
penetrable, no man could watch effectively. The 
holms round Thorneyhill were separated by a stretch 
of bog and furze from an even thicker holm which 
stretched down in the direction of Holmesly. It was 
country as untamed and wild and virgin as any in the 
heart of Africa. Only the wild duck and the gypsies 
knew it well. The keepers knew the paths through 
it, it is true, but they knew them perforce. Mary and 


138 


ALLWARD 


Lyddon crept through the deep glossy-leaved twilight 
of the hollies, pushed their way through the flaming 
gorse, leapt from tussock to tussock in the bog, or 
walked lightly where the ground quaked, for the joy 
of exploration. 

He was not always accompanied by Mary. On long 
solitary walks he seemed to retrieve something that 
had been lost to him, the faculty of dropping thought 
as it were in the keener faculty of the senses, a faculty 
which leaves most people after their first youth, the 
prerogative of childhood and animals and savages. 

Mary, too, was busy. The primroses and daffodils 
were out in the copses, wild violets grew everywhere 
in the hedges and under the furze-bushes on the moor; 
and anemones, too frail to survive the long walk to 
Christchurch. And the gorse was yellow, so yellow 
that the spikes were covered with the vivid bloom — 

there is nothing so yellow as gorse wdth an April sun 

on it, it is the most yellow and shining flower God 
ever made, and great stretches of moor were golden 
with it. The gorse was no good, however, to the 
flower-sellers ; it is unlucky to pluck, like the blackthorn 
and the may. 

There were bright days, hot with sun and fresh with 
the east wind. The larks climbed high into the sky, 

the two long pools that lay in the moor between 

Thorneyhill and Burley were like two eyes of living 
blue, above which the peewits called to each other. 
Lyddon used to wander out on to this moor at night, 
sometimes to listen to their unearthly night-cry as they 
rose suddenly towards the stars, or to the snickering 
goat-like bleating of the snipe. To think that success 
had kept him chained from all this: that it had 
waited for him spring after spring in vain. There are 
some men to whom the earth and her seasons mean 


ALLWARD 159 

deeper emotions than religion to an orthodox believer, 
and Lyddon was one of them. 

He changed his camp every few days. Miss Price, 
though she proved somewhat of a well-meaning 
nuisance to him, offered him a corner of her field to 
retreat to in order to make the necessary disappearance 
from the hollies which the keepers enforced upon all 
vagrants. But he preferred the hollies. The Sherratts 
departed and returned like uneasy spirits, so did other 
families which in the fellowship of the hollies he had 
learned to know. He saw something of the hardness of 
their lives, too — one family was moved on while a child 
was ill, and it died, as the father had prophesied, when 
he came to beg the authorities to allow them to stay a 
little longer. He learnt to know the supreme philos- 
ophy which remains hopeful and cheerful though 
starvation lies behind the morrow. He often shared 
his bread with those who would cheerfully endure 
emptiness sooner than take to the servitude of the 
cottager, or the hard charity of the relieving officer. 
Freedom was so dear to them that they sold the comfort 
of their bodies for it. They clung to their hard life 
because some instinct warned them that they had the 
freedom which no prosperous roof-sheltered person 
has, unless he is of the class which has money enough 
to escape from itself. But even the wealthy can rarely 
escape from the curse of comfort, the parasitism of 
servants. 

i 

The local point-to-point races, usually held in 
March, were postponed on account of the heavy rains 
till Easter Monday, which fell in the middle of April. 
Lyddon, in common with all the working population of 
Thorneyhill, had an empty day. 

Mary and two of her cousins, Em’ly and Alius, 


140 


ALLWARD 


wanted to go to the races, and they persuaded Lyddon 
into accompanying them. He assented in a cakes- 
and-ale mood that made a tramp over country roads 
to see the racing a prospect agreeable enough. They 
provided themselves with hunks of bread-and-cheese and 
started. It was a brilliant spring day, cooled by the 
east wind. The larks kept up a tireless trilling in the 
blue sky, and the hedges were ablaze with the golden 
fire of the gorse. 

The three gypsy girls walked along arm in arm in 
the highest of good spirits, teasing Lyddon, who 
teased back. There were all kinds of foolish witticisms 
to be made; about Mary’s new kerchief which Lyddon 
had bought her, and which she declared was dotted 
over with “ girt eyes ” watching to see what he was up 
to, and about Allus’s supposed conquest of a keeper’s 
son who had seen her dance, while Em’ly was taxed 
with an imaginary policeman who had given her a 
brooch with a swallow on it. Silly delightful non- 
sensicalities with three pretty girls on a dusty high- 
way under a spring sun — who bothers to think if 
there is anything in such magpie chatter but just good 
spirits and youth ? 

Mary wore the kerchief and a clean apron, and a 
black hat with mangled artificial flowers on it that 
had been the gift of a customer in the preceding 
summer. It was audacious, tawdry, costerish, but it 
suited her dark vivid face and the great gold earrings. 
She had the sweetness of expression which atones for 
everything in a woman. Alius, strange little creature, 
was gorgeous in large red and yellow beads and a 
shawl of her mother’s which she had attempted, with 
but partial success, to dye yellow with an infusion of 
gorse bloom. Em’ly, the beauty of the family and 
taller than all of them, was of disquieting good looks. 


ALLWARD 


141 


She was beautiful in the splendid, tragic way, though 
she had not Mary’s peculiar charm or her honest eyes. 
Her great dark eyes were wells of light; when she 
moved them towards you you saw nothing else, and 
she knew it. In fact she was a professional beauty, 
trained by her occasional employment as artist’s 
model into the habit of poses, into consciousness of 
her loveliness. Em’ly never spoke much. She smiled 
with a smile that was weighted with the languor of 
starry nights ; she was more refined of speech than 
her sisters, and disliked being called a gypsy or what 
she called “ low talk, no better than the gruntin’ of 
pigs, I calls it.” 

No wonder that Em’ly returned from Bournemouth 
with more money than the rest. She was a curious 
creature and disliked men. Every time she came back 
from Bournemouth she had a tale to tell of this or 
that rye who had spoken to her. But she was as safe, 
for all her beauty, as the plainest of them. Her ambi- 
tion was, vaguely, a marriage with a man in comfortable 
circumstances, and she had not imagination enough to 
turn her from her purpose. 

A fifth member of the party was Prissy’s eldest boy 
— ’Enry, aged eight. ’Enry wore a coat not unlike a 
coster’s without the buttons, and he cherished a minia- 
ture pipe which an uncle had given him. He was, as a 
treat, allowed to have a pinch of tobacco in it now and 
again. The two elder girls smoked as they went along, 
and ’Enry walked beside them gloomily, his hands in 
his pockets. 

Lyddon consoled him by the promise that if there 
were a sweet-stall he should be taken to it imme- 
diately. 

“ And me, too,” said Alius. 

“ ’Ush, you greedy little thing ! ” said Em’ly. 


143 


ALLWARD 


“ Shoon to the raunie, chavis ! ” said Alius, making 
a face at her, and knowing that Em’ly disliked 
Romany. 

“ You be quiet, Alius,” said Mary pacifically. 
“ Adam ain’t made of money, and he wants to put a 
bit on the gries.” 

“ Alius shall have her sweets, of course,” said 
Lyddon. “ 1 shall still have a shilling or so to put on 
the gries, though I don’t know what’s running 
the least bit in the world. Who’s the favourite, 
’Enry? ” 

The question was satirical, but ’Enry informed him 
that Fencing Master was a good ’oss. 

The girls mocked him. 

“ Who told you that, ’Enry? ” 

“ Where did you get that, Mister Tattersall? ” 

“ I yeerd ’em talking,” said the boy stolidly. “ I 
knows who’s riding him, it’s Sanders. And he’s in for 
the Hunt Cup.” 

’Enry was born into the world two feet from a 
horse’s nose, feeding near the tent, and horses were 
the passion of his young life. He was always making 
excuses to hang about Lord Redwood’s stables, so 
that it might be that truth issued from the mouth of 
this babe. 

“ Are you sure, ’Enry ? ” asked Mary. 

“ Yes. He’s running at Epsom, too, if he beats 
Mayfly here.” 

“ Anyway you shall put a shilling on him,” said 
Lyddon. 

“ What’ll you put on? ” 

He jingled his pocket. “ Not much, because I 
haven’t got it to lose.” 

“ I spect dad’ll be here,” said Mary. “ He never 
misses a race within farty miles. But gypsies and 


ALLWARD 143 

travellers don’t come to meetin’s like this, look, ’tain’t 
worth their while.” 

As they approached the fields which served as race- 
course, they were constantly passed by motors, one 
after the other, whitening the hedgerow and choking 
the pedestrians. The country people stood at their 
gates to see the gay folk going past, farmers drove by 
in their gigs, cyclists and motor-cyclists powdered 
with dust pursued their way — in fact, the quiet country 
road had become so unlike itself that a policeman 
stood at the cross-roads to regulate the traffic. The 
gypsy-girls and their companion went into the field 
and found rows of motor-cars already drawn up by 
the ropes, with here and there a carriage, here and 
there some other horse-drawn vehicle. But the day of 
the horse has gone, and Lyddon found it in his soul 
to feel sympathy with Miss Price in her hatred of 
motor-cars. Here, at an event devoted to the cult of 
the horse, gathered in their hundreds in the pride of 
smooth enamel and snug luxury, they were an 
insolence. Machinery flaunted it before the horse- 
flesh it had supplanted, the chauffeur seemed to sneer at 
the groom. 

With all his instinctive genius for mechanical 
science, Lyddon had no passionate love of it for its 
own sake. It was as if the genius which made scien- 
tific toys easy for him to manipulate lived in some 
compartment separate from his heart. It is said that 
a man cannot be successful in work which he does 
not love. Work absorbed Lyddon while he was at it, 
and he never rested until he had solved . a problem 
which worried him; but at the back of him was the 
Lyddon who had always disappointed his masters at 
school, the Lyddon who lost interest when other men 


144 


ALLWARD 


grew keen, who threw up a fight in the moment of 
victory, the Lyddon with the kink of unexpectedness 
in him. 

They made their way into the second field, where 
the bookies were yelling “ Three to one the field, three 
to one the field,” at the top of their voices. The noise 
and commotion were exhilarating. 

Suddenly Mary pulled at Lyddon’s arm. 

“ There’s Alf ! ” she said. 

They were elbowing their way through the crowd, 
and Lyddon had tight hold of ’Enry’s shoulder, lest 
the child should disappear in the maelstrom of humanity 
that surged about the bookies. 

For a moment Lyddon, flushed with his elbowing 
through the crowd, could not remember who “ Alf ” was, 
then the photograph which Mary had shown him weeks 
ago rose before his mental vision. 

“ There he is,” said Mary. 

Lyddon followed the direction of her eyes. At a 
little distance from the bookies and further down the 
hill, for the meadow sloped, a temporary ring had been 
formed about two rough-looking fellows who were spar- 
ring with the gloves, their waistcoats and coats off, and 
their shirt-sleeves rolled back. 

“ Which is he? ” he asked. 

“ The smaller of them two what’s boxin’,” said 
Mary. 

She glanced at him with a kind of questioning co- 
quetry that irritated him slightly. 

“ Well, we shan’t see much of you, then,” he retorted. 
“ Come on, ’Enry and Alius, there’s a sweet-stall under 
that tent.” 

He was free of the crowd now, and walked between 
the two children into the tent. They bought half a 
pound of the stickiest sweetmeats on the stall and 


ALLWARD 


145 


then ginger-ale. At this stage he saw Em’ly and Mary 
at the entrance and turned to invite them to have 
ginger-ale, too. They accepted cheerfully. 

“ Let’s eat our bit of bread-and-cheese up under the 
hedge now, before we drops it,” suggested Alius, and 
the proposition was accepted by the party, though ’Enry 
would rather have hung about the horses in the 
improvised paddock at the further end. Both Mary 
and Em’ly were inclined to be silent during the 
meal. 

“ I don’t see dad, p’raps he ain’t cornin’,” said Mary 
with a sigh. “ Look, there’s a yeller butterfly, the fust 
I seen this year.” 

“ Wish, then,” said Alius. 

“ Don’t know what to wish,” said she listlessly. 

“ I knows what I wish,” said Alius. 

“ What then? ” 

“ I keeps that to my kukri.” 

“ That’s no word you larned in school,” said Em’ly 
with disdain. 

“ Ho, my raunie, ain’t it a lav you jins!” Alius 
mocked. “ You wait till your boro rye comes along 
and pookers you before you makes out that Romany 
chavis is low folki.” 

“ What bookie’ll you go to, Adam? ” asked ’Enry 
tensely. 

“ Pony White looks my man,” he replied. 

“ I knows him,” said ’Enry. “ You give me that 
shilling and I’ll go down now afore the price gets 
shorter.” 

“ He won’t take money from a tikno like you,” said 
Alius scornfully. 

“ Let’s go together,” said Lyddon. “ We’ll leave the 
women to themselves for a bit.” 

Greatly pleased at the assumption that his aunts 


146 


ALLWARD 


and cousin belonged after all to the inferior sex, ’Enry 
strolled down with Lyddon to the bookies again to 
make their bets. Fencing Master stood at five to one. 
Mayfly and Precentor were favourites. The boxing- 
ring was broken up, and its place taken by a man who 
was inviting standers-by to place their money on a 
table marked with numbers. A man with a banjo 
whose affection no one would have troubled to win, 
was singing, “ You made me love you,” to the rows 
of motor-cars ranged along the course. The cry pre- 
sently went up, “ They’re off ! ” and there was a general 
movement forward to the left. Lyddon pushed his way 
through the motors to the rail, and held ’Enry on 
his shoulder so that the excited boy might have a 
good view. The horses soon disappeared behind a belt 
of trees, and it would be a moment or two before they 
reappeared. 

The brilliancy of the light, the gaiety of the colours, 
the fashionably dressed women in the motor-cars, 
gave Lyddon an odd pang of melancholy. There is 
nothing like a crowd, and a crowd intent on pleasure, 
to give a man that sudden feeling of mental depression, 
of intense loneliness, of a loneliness never felt in a 
forest, of an isolation never present in a desert. 
Lyddon was conscious of such a detachment now as 
he watched the flying horses, the eager crowd, the sun 
glittering on the water- jump half-a-mile away. There 
was a thin sprinkling of people hastening now to 
cross the course in order to have a good view of the 
horses as they came round. He was following them 
with his eyes mechanically, when a voice said in his 
ear — • 

“ It is Mr. Lyddon, isn’t it? ” 

Lyddon put the child down and turned round. 

A woman of youthful figure and fragile appearance 


ALLWARD 147 

stood beside him. Her hair was white, and she had 
a look of exaggerated fragility and delicacy. 

44 My motor’s over there,” she said breathlessly, push- 
ing back a grey silk motor veil that the wind had caught. 
44 I was looking about with my glasses and I saw you. 
I thought I couldn’t be mistaken. You know all sorts 
of things were said about you — that you were drowned, 
that you had lost your memory, that you had left the 
country.” 

44 I didn’t know,” he said honestly, looking her in the 
eyes. 44 I hadn’t seen a paper.” 

44 Then you didn’t — you haven’t ” Her distress 

was obvious. 

44 My lawyer told me the decision was safe enough,” 
he said bluntly. 

“ Oh, of course, of course — 1 — ” She hesitated as if 
at a loss as to how to proceed. 

44 I was more sorry than I can say that Eleanor was 
nearly dragged into it,” he added briefly. 44 But I 
managed to prevent that.” 

44 Oh, I know, I know. Eleanor showed me the letters 
you wrote to her.” 

44 It wasn’t the kind of business that one likes to see 
a nice woman dragged into,” he said bitterly. 

The lady in grey paused, her hand upon the handle 
of her sunshade. She was in some obvious embarrass- 
ment. 

44 Eleanor is here — — ” she said, a tremulous smile 
on her lips. 44 1 think you ought to see her. She has 
been anxious about you — terribly anxious — and after 
what she has endured — — ” 

The inner Lyddon growled, 44 What right has she to 
be anxious? ” and added compunctiously, 44 Yes, she did 
behave like a brick, I ought to see her.” 

He stood irresolute. 


148 


ALLWARD 


44 She has suffered on your account,” said the lady in 
grey. “ Naturally — I wonder if you realise what her 
friendship meant.” 

He did realise, none better. 

“ How is it that you are down here ? ” he asked 
desperately. 

44 Don’t you see — after it was all over poor Eleanor 
— absolute nervous breakdown. The doctors sent her 
to Bournemouth. We motored over.” 

Here was fate inexorable, in the form of a young 
woman he liked, and was grateful to, but dreaded. 

44 I can’t leave this child,” he said. 44 May I bring 
him, too ? ” 

44 Of course, of course.” 

He walked beside her moodily. It was not so easy 
to escape from oneself after all. 

Then she put a hand on his arm and spoke in an 
agitated voice. 

44 I must tell you, before you see her,” she said. 44 1 
don’t believe you can know. Marjorie is dead.” 

44 Marjorie is dead!” he exclaimed. 44 My wife 
dead ! ” 

She nodded her head. 44 Just after the decree was 
given,” she said. 44 No, no, I can see what you were 
thinking. No, thank God it was not that. She was 
in that express that was wrecked — the Edinburgh 
express.” 

He came to a standstill. 44 1 can’t see Eleanor yet,” 
he said abruptly. 44 I’ve got to realise this. You are 
sure this is true? ” 

44 Only too sure,” she said in a muted voice. 

He was silent. 

44 Do you mind telling nobody you’ve seen me?” he 
said after a minute. 

44 And Eleanor? ” 


ALLWARD 149 

“ Oh, tell her,” he said, slowly and reluctantly. 
“ But she will not tell any one ? ” 

“ Not if you wish it. But why ? 99 

“ I will tell Eleanor why,” said he. It would be wise 
to see Eleanor once and for all. 

“ Could you motor over again? ” he asked. 

“ But where are you staying? And, my dear 
Richard,” she gave a half-nervous laugh, “ who is this 
young gentleman? 99 

“ I am staying with friends,” he said, with one of his 
attractive smiles. “ This is one of them.” 

“ You like sweets, I see! ” she said in a patronising 
would-be friendly voice which always makes a small 
boy dumb. ’Enry gave her a brief glance and then 
scanned the field from his vantage ground on 
Lyddon’s shoulder, for his friend had reinstated 
him. 

“ He looks like a little coster,” said the lady to 
Lyddon. 

“ He’s a gypsy,” said Lyddon. 

’Enry, an acid-drop in his mouth, was sublimely un- 
conscious of them. 

“ You haven’t told me where to meet you with 
Eleanor,” said the lady in grey in gentle reproach. 

“ It must be a Sunday,” he said, and remembered with 
regret that Sunday was the day on which he and Mary 
generally went wandering off together. 

“ It can be a Sunday.” 

“ Could you come as far as Bransgore? ” he asked. “ I 
know Eleanor won’t mind my not going into Bourne- 
mouth. I am camping in the New Forest.” 

“ I know ! ” exclaimed the grey lady. “ Tell me 
where your camp is, and I will drop her next Sunday 
afternoon near it. She has an old friend near Brans- 
gore. I can call on some people in Brockenhurst and 


150 ALLWARD 

fetch her on the way back. You know how Eleanor 
adores the Forest.” 

He did remember vaguely, and how she had pressed 
him to go there. To be advised to go to a place was 
usually sufficient to deter him from going near it. 
Dartmoor had been his favourite wandering-ground, 
South Wales and the Valley of the Wye. Yet 
perhaps some memory subconsciously preserved had 
been in his brain when he had taken that mad ride away 
from London. Yes, this might be another of his many 
debts to Eleanor. 

“ Drop her at Thomeyhill post office, please, then,” 
he said. “ I will be there at three next Sunday.” 

His camp would be in Miss Price’s field by then, and 
they would be free from intrusion. Also he would have 
had a reluctance inexplicable to himself to let Eleanor 
come to his camp in the hollies. Yet he was bound to 
both Eleanor and her aunt by many acts of kindness, 
and he did not let himself forget it. 

He bade good-bye to the fragile little lady with a 
lifting of his battered hat. 

“ Next is the Hunt Cup,” observed ’Enry phlegmat- 
ically. 

“ Let’s go and find Mary,” Lyddon said mechanically. 

The news of his wife’s death still rang in his brain. He 
did not realise it. He had come nearer to liking her in 
the months when she had actually thrown over conven- 
tion for the one man she had really cared for than at 
any time since his quick realisation of their unsuitability 
in the early days of their marriage. 

He began to feel the dull remorse which will over- 
take the most blameless when brought face to face 
with their share in the life of the dead. Technically 
he had nothing with which to reproach himself. He 
had never been the aggressor, and for the coldness 


ALLWARD 


151 


which springs from an inability to love it is useless 
for a man to blame himself. She was a hard woman 
with one soft spot. She had paid for her ambition 
by losing the sum total of her worldly success in the 
one wholly unselfish piece of folly she had ever com- 
mitted. Yet once, a raw youth, he had been dazzled 
by her, had thought her a goddess. And she was 
dead. A young woman, though older than himself, 
she was dead. And it was not defeat in her last 
frenzied stand, her attempt to throw dirt upon those 
she knew she had wronged, that had killed her: it was 
chance. 

Chance looks too often like Fate for us to misname 
and disdain it. What men call chance has often been 
lying in wait for a thousand years. But there is the 
human pride of free-will to be pandered to by gods 
who hide a smile. 

And mingled subconsciously with everything else, 
was that odd misgiving he felt with regard to Eleanor. 
They had always been friends, he kept on repeating to 
himself. Why resent the fact that she had found him 
out? 

“ Mary’s gone ! ” said ’Enry. 

They had reached the hedge where they had left 
the three girls. There was no sign now of them, neither 
could they, from the vantage of the hill, see either of 
the three in the crowd below. 

“ I’ll go and hunt them up,” said Lyddon. “ You 
stay here, ’Enry, until I come, and if you see them, tell 
them I’m looking for them.” 

He went off in the direction of the refreshment tent, 
where he expected to find the girls if the young 
pugilist had really taken them in tow. He would not 
in truth be sorry, for he could go back to Thomeyhill. 
But he could not leave until he had given ’Enry into 


152 


ALLWARD 


their charge. He took no further interest in the racing 
and he had no wish to see Eleanor. 

But the girls were not in the tent, and he had perforce 
to find ’Enry again. At the gate, however, he met Em’ly 
and Alius. 

“ Well, you’re the lucky one,” they said, and Alius 
caught hold of his arm and began hopping joyfully on 
one foot. 

“ Look at him ! He don’t even know ! Dordi, dordi ! 
Where you bin ! ” 

“ What, didn’t you see the race ! ” said Em’ly, her 
lovely eyes on him in surprise. 

Alius poured it out in a rush, “ Mayfly was leadin’, 
and he would a-won, but he broke his leg at that last 
jump, you knows, Adam, and ’Enry’s hoss come in 
fust. I saw ’im pass the post! There was the number 
on him, three <” 

“ It was Fencing Master, right enough,” said Em’ly. 

“ How much did you put on, Adam ! ” 

“ I think it was ten shillings.” 

“ Then what you got ? Five posh bars, that’s two 
pound ten. Chavis, chavis, he’ll stand us treat ! ” She 
jumped about like an excitable dog, her shawl half off 
her shoulders, a veritable imp. 

“ I’ll stand treat if you go and get ’Enry,” Lyddon 
said. “We’d best claim our winnings from Pony 
White, and ’Enry won’t care to miss that.” 

Alius darted off, and Em’ly remained. 

“ Where’s Mary? ” he asked. 

“Mary’s gone off with Alf. Mary’s funny-tempered 
to-day. I lay Alf don’t get much for his money with 
her.” 

Alf again ! Lyddon felt a great irritation with Alf. 
“ He has stopped boxing, then,” he said. 

Em’ly looked at him with her great soft eyes. 


ALLWARD 


153 


“ He’s always after Mary,” she said, with her hoarse 
subdued voice, which had in it something of the 
would-be genteel. “ He’s angry with her now, 
look, because of what folk is sayin’ about you and 
her.” 

Lyddon flushed angrily. “ If they talk about Mary 
in connection with me they must be hard up.” 

“ Oh, we all knows there’s no harm in it,” said Em’ly 
pacifically. “ But Mary’s on’y herself to blame. She 
makes herself out so grand now she’s always with you. 
You’d think to hear her speak there was on’y one man 
in the world.” 

“ Mary ! Mary 1 is a child. She hasn’t half your 

knowledge of men ” He looked at the beauty with 

somewhat brutal eyes. “ She is simple. Can’t you 
see that there is no more in her being fond of me than 
there is in my being fond of her? If there were, she 
wouldn’t talk of it.” 

Em’ly looked cowed but unconvinced, and then 
Alius reappeared, dragging with her the imperturb- 
able ’Enry, calm in the moment of triumph. They 
bore down upon Pony White and received their 
winnings from his big bag with the brass bindings. 
’Enry held his six shillings in a hot and dirty hand, 
and swam in the heightened respect of his female 
relatives as in a sea of glory. He had seen the race 
from the hill where Lyddon had left him, but was so 
masculine that he scorned the outpourings of his young 
aunt. 

They went once more to the refreshment tent, and 
Lyddon wondered at the capacity of the girls for such 
gaseous stuff as ginger-ale. An itinerant hawker was 
selling beads and cheap jewellery outside, and Lyddon 
bought the girls some chains of gypsyish-looking 
beads and a brooch labelled “ Real Gold ” for Mary. 


154 ALL WARD 

Mary herself came running up to him as he was paying 
for them. 

44 Oh, Adam, you’ve a-won ! I’m so glad 1 ” 

Her pretty brown eyes were laughing, her face like 
a rose under its tawdry hat. 

He handed her the brooch with a mock bow. 

44 From the winnings,” he said, and then became 
aware of the young pugilist just behind her, his hair 
lying in a sleek black curl over his low forehead, his 
mouth heavy with anger. 

44 For me ! ” she said, flushing and her eyes shining 
up at him. 44 You shouldn’t go buyin’ things for me, 
Adam! ” It was softly said in her husky gypsy voice, 
in a tone of sweet reproach. 

Alf Stace came forward, reddening. 

44 You give it back to him, Mary,” he ordered. 

She stared at him in astonishment. 

44 My girl don’t want no presents from folks what’s 
ashamed for others to know who they are,” said Alf 
in a blustering voice. Lyddon smelt the beer in his 
breath. 44 Givin’ her brooches, are you ! I knows 
you ! You’re a fine one, you are. An artist, are you ! 
Well, you leave my girl alone.” 

Mary whispered to Lyddon hurriedly — 

44 Don’t take no notice of him, Adam. He’s been 
drinkin’. I’ll get him quiet. He don’t mean 
nuthink.” 

But Alf resisted her touch on his arm. 

44 An artist, is ’e? ” he repeated thickly and fero- 
ciously, his anger feeding on itself. 44 Ho, you cawn’t 
say a word for yourself, can’t yer ! Git tin’ the 
wimmen to hide yer.” 

44 Look here, my good Alf,” said Lyddon calmly. 
44 If you don’t want the police here, you’d best clear off. 
If you want explanations, don’t ask for them here.” 


ALLWARD 


155 


“Alf! Oo said you could ‘ Alf ’ me? I’ll b well 

‘ Alf ’ you. Yes, you’d give me up to the b police, 

would jer ! ” 

“ You’ll give yourself up if you make such a noise,” 
said Lyddon, turning his back on him. 

And Mary, her patience exhausted, confronted him 
like a tigress. “Your girl, am I! Who said I was 
your girl, or anybody else’s girl? If you think because 
I was took with you at Lyndhurst Fair that I’m any- 
thing to you, you’re mistook, Alf Stace. Thank the 
Duwlus you’re none of our folk, a low fightin’ mumper 
you are, and I wouldn’t look at you. You ain’t worth 
what Adam there throws away, and I’ve done with 
you.” 

Alf Stace’s veins were swollen with wrath. He gave 
Mary a great push that almost tripped her up. 

“ You fight it,” he shouted to Lyddon. “ You fight 
it.” 

“ Not here,” said Lyddon. “ But for that push you 
gave Mary just then I’ll fight you as much as you 
please.” 

“ You’re afraid to get your pretty eyes blacked,” said 
the beery youth. 

Lyddon turned on his heel and faced him. 

“ Anywhere you like away from this crowd.” 

“ Don’t you fight him, Adam,” said Mary. “ He’s 
knocked out Bilty Hegan.” 

But the two men had already set off together towards 
the distant road. Em’ly had melted away, fearing to 
be drawn into the quarrel, Alius and ’Enry clung to 
Mary’s arm: the girl awed and fearful, the boy with 
the secret satisfaction and respect that a bodily contest 
to be always evokes in the mind of a youngster, 

“ Did Alf hurt you? ” asked Alius of Mary. “ Oh, 
are they goin’ to fight? Fancy, they chingered over 


156 


ALLWARD 


you, Mary ! Wish I was old enough to see the mushes 
fightin’ about me. Ain’t you pleased, Mary? ” 

She began to hop and skip nervously. 

44 Oh, shut up,” said Mary. 

She followed the two figures with her eyes. 

44 Where are they goin’ to? ” continued Alius irre- 
pressibly. 44 1 lay Alf gets his yokkers bunged up for 
once. Adam’s twice his size.” 

44 It ain’t size,” said ’Enry contemptuously. 

44 Be quiet, chavis,” said Mary. Then she said, 
44 You bide with Em’ly, I’m goin’ after Adam.” 

44 Take me, too,” wailed both the children. 44 I’m 
cornin’,” said Alius, following her at a run, and ’Enry 
clung on to his young aunt’s old skirt. 

Mary caught him up in her arms and ran, avoiding 
the press of people, and followed as lightly as a doe 
by Alius. 

Meanwhile Lyddon and his strange companion had 
turned down the dusty road. Alf Stace kept up a 
running murmur of what he imagined to be insulting 
taunt, half frightened lest be might have taken on a 
bigger job than he bargained for. The hedgerows 
were white with flowering blackthorn beneath the 
dust. 

44 Where can we go? ” Lyddon asked. He had not 
used his fists since his school-days, and the quarrel 
with this little low-bred ruffian struck him as having its 
humorous side. 

44 1 don’t keer,” said Alf Stace sullenly. 

44 In the next field, then.” 

The pugilist now preserved a beery silence. The 
lovely spring air, scented with the perfume which is 
the perfume of the youth of the earth, met them on a 
light breeze. 

They turned into the field, which was occupied at 


ALLWARD 157 

its further end by a flock of baa-ing sheep with their 
bleating offspring. 

“ Baa-aa ! 55 “ Me-eeh I ” It sounded like a litany 

with responses. 

Lyddon, now his blood was up, was glad there 
would be a fight even with such a creature as this. 
There are times when nothing but fisticuffs will let 
the demon out of a man, the hard thud of flesh on 
flesh, the thrust of the arm, the quick decision, the 
defence, the attack, all using brain and muscle at 
lightning speed. He knew that his chance against 
this professionally trained stocky little brute was 
small, but that did not diminish his satisfaction at the 
prospect of fighting him. No man had appeared more 
offensive than Mr. Alf Stace for many a day. 

And so it happened that when Mary, Alius and 
’Enry appeared, the two men were hard at it, and it 
was only thanks to the beer that his antagonist had 
taken that Lyddon could hold his own. He knew 
himself a beaten man before he started, but if he could 
only get one blow home it would satisfy him. It was 
got in at last, but it sobered Stace, and he landed 
a heavy blow that knocked Lyddon’s sense out of him 
and sent him headlong as a felled ox, with a head 
bloody enough to justify Mr. Stace’s favourite 
adjective. 


CHAPTER XII 


Alf, sobered by the fight, and relieved by the victory, 
awaited Mary’s reproach sheepishly. 

“ What’ve you done with him ? ” she asked sharply, 
with a note of fear in her voice. 

“ Dazzled ’im a bit, that’s all.” 

She did not waste a look at him. “ Go an’ get some 
water as fast as you can.” 

“ There’s no water.” 

“ Oh, there’s no cottage acrost the road, is there? ” 
she said sarcastically. “ And you’ve no tongue in your 
head, have you? ” 

“ You b — — well stop ordering me about,” he snarled 
at her, but went off obediently to the cottage which 
stood at some little distance on the further side of the 
road. 

“ Is he bad? ” asked Alius, with interest. 

Mary had knelt down by Lyddon’s head, and was 
raising it. 

“ I dunno,” she said shortly, with no excess of 
emotion. 

“ They always ends up on the ground,” Alius re- 
marked. “ Didn’t he come down hard ! ” 

“ I seen Adam land him one,” said ’Enry, with quiet 
satisfaction. 

“ And s’up me dearie duwel 
Can’t the mush koor well,” 

hummed Alius nervously. 

“ If you don’t shut your mouth, Alius — — ” began 
Mary fiercely. 


158 


ALLWARD 159 

“ I wasn’t singin’, I was on’y ’ummin’,” said 
Alius. 

“ Well, you wait to ’um till Adam’s better.” 

44 He’s movin’ now.” 

“ He ain’t killed,” interjected ’Enry. 

“ Here’s Alf with the water.” 

Alf Stace assisted in their efforts to bring his fallen 
foe back to his senses. But when Lyddon had regained 
them, and sat up somewhat shakily, he slouched off. 
The service had been rendered out of fear of Mary 
rather than out of any feeling of chivalry. 

44 How d’you feel? ” asked Mary. 

44 Right as rain, except for a bit of dizziness.” 

She was silent. The children stared with fascinated 
attention at his bloody countenance, which Mary was 
dabbing with a wet handkerchief. 

He attempted to take the handkerchief from her. 

44 I’m all right,” he said. 44 1 must have a thin skull. 
It’s the second time I’ve been knocked silly since I 
knew you.” 

44 You are bleedin’ still,” said Mary. 44 Keep the 
handk’chf up. I’ll tie it for you. I told you not to 
fight with him.” 

44 Don't be so righteously indignant,” he said, with a 
smile. 

She tied up his head for him. 

44 You’d best sit under the hedge for a bit,” she 
remarked, relenting towards him. 44 I’m goin’ to get 
you a drop of brandy. If you goes outside lookin’ like 
you does now, you’ll have all the folk after you.” 

44 1 don’t want any brandy,” he replied. 

44 It’ll pull you together.” 

44 I’ll get it myself.” 

44 And have a crowd round you! No, I’m goin’. I 
shan’t be long, and I want to see if dad’s there, too. 


160 ALLWARD 

They wouldn’t serve Alius, she’s too small. You 
cornin’, ’Enry? ” 

44 No, I’m goin’ to bide along of Adam,” said ’Enry 
faithfully. 

44 Don’t you bother him now ! ” warned Mary, 
departing. 

Alius and ’Enry squatted opposite their defeated 
hero. 

44 Blood’s a-comin’ through the han’kercher,” said 
Alius. 44 You must a-knocked against a stone.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Lyddon cheerfully, mopping 
it. 

44 You was silly to take him on,” Alius continued. 
44 You might a-knowed he’d best you, although you’re 
so much bigger.” 

44 Adam landed him one,” repeated ’Enry. 44 Jesse 
Pidgeley went down without hittin’ back onst when he 
stood up against Alf.” 

44 Do your head ache? ” asked Alius. 

44 Not worth talking of,” he assured her. 

44 Like to yer me sing a song about fightin’ ? It 
come into my head just now while you was on the 
ground. Uncle Noah gives me a penny when I sings 
it to he.” She hummed it again in her rather nasal 
little voice. 

44 If you want to sing, sing,” said Lyddon 
resignedly. 

44 You won’t know what ’tis about.” 

44 Why? ” 

44 Ah,” said she mysteriously, and began — 

“ Mandy soved last rati 
In the granzi adray 
With my tawni rakli, 

And the gavmush hovved to mandy 
To lei mandy avri. 


ALLWARD 


161 


Mandy striped off at him 
And delled him in the pur; 

And s’up me deara duwel, 

Can’t the mush koor well! ” 

(Baa-aa-aa! bee-ee-eeh! went the sheep and the lambs 
as accompaniment.) 

“Ho ov along o’ me, my mush! 

Ho ov along o’ mandy! 

Mandy amunged a shubli cart 
From the kair among the trees. 

When mandy munged the cart 
And nashered it avri 
The gavmush oved to mandy 
To lei me avri. 

But what a kushti bit of kel 
Mandy will lei 

Along with my romany rakli gal! 

Mandy jailed to puv the gry 
All around the stuggas avri 
A mush howed to mandy 
To lei me avri. 

Mandy striped off at him 
And delled him in the pur; 

And s’up me deara duwel, 

Can’t the mush koor well! 

It was all through me rakli 
A-makin’ of the godli 
As brought the mush to mandy 
What lelled me avri. 

Mandy striped off at him 
And delled him in the pur ; 

And s’up me deara duwel, 

Can’t the mush koor well! ” 

“ D’you like that? ” she ended up abruptly. 

His head was still swimming, but he assured her that 
he did. Alius would have amused him if he had been 
dying, with her elfin face and her unexpectedness. 

44 And what does it all mean ? 99 he asked, supporting 
his head in his hands. 

“ It’s all about a man what slept with his girl in 


162 


ALLWARD 


a bam and she made a noise, and when he was goin’ 
to put the harse in the cart they was taken, and he hit 
the gavmush in the stummick what come to take him to 
the lock-up,” said she breathlessly. 

“ Oh.” 

“ Will you give me a penny for that? ” 

“ You can take it out of my pocket in the coat over 
there.” 

Alius availed herself of the permission promptly. 

“ You mayn’t have nuthink left to-morrow,” she 
observed. “ That’s why I sung it now.” 

“ Better take twopence, then,” he said. 

She did so. 

“ There’s Aunt Mary and Uncle Sam? ” remarked 
’Enry. 

Lyddon got up and walked towards them and 
assured the rat-catcher that he was all the better for 
the fight. 

“ Come and have a drink, then,” said the rat-catcher. 
“ We’ll get Alf to have a drink too, and all end up 
friendly. Alf loses his ’ead after the first few glasses ; 
he don’t drink like what we do, but after the next 
couple, you’ll see, he’ll be cryin’ on your neck and 
askin’ yer pardon for makin’ a fool of hisself.” 

“ No, thanks,” Lyddon replied. “ I’ll be walking 
home,- 1 think.” 

“ What, tired of the races ! ” 

“ Tired of the crowd that’s looking on.” 

“ Ah, you’re right there ! What right’ve they to be 
lookin’ at hosses? Lots of ’em don’t know one end of 
a hoss from t’other. Motor-cars. Motors everywhere. 
A fine look out for us harse dealers. I could cry when 
I sees a crowd like that. You’re right, Adam. I on’y 
just looked in, like, meself. I got a harse and cart 
outside, I’ll drop you in Tharneyhill myself. But we 


ALLWARD 


163 


won’t be done out of our drink neither, as I’ve a word to 
speak at the Carpenter’s Arms. You been winnin’ 
golden bars, I hears.” 

“ They wouldn’t let me bring the brandy out of the 
tent,” Mary explained her empty-handedness. 

“ I’ll see you to-morrow, my girl,” said her father. 
“ S’up me duvvel, she looks prettier each day, don’t 
she, Adam ? Ain’t she the pretty little raunie l ” 

Mary blushed, and the rat-catcher, who had also been 
enlivened by a glass of liquor, caught her by the waist 
and kissed her. Lyddon got up into the cart, the 
gypsy joined him, and they drove off through the 
lanes. 

Lyddon guessed rightly from the rat-catcher’s refer- 
ence to his winnings, that he was to pay the reckoning 
at the Carpenter’s Arms, but when he came to think 
of it afterwards he had no recollection of doing so. 
Whether his fall had renewed in some minor degree the 
concussion of some weeks ago, he did not know, but the 
glass of old ale which he drank at the rat-catcher’s 
instigation, increased rather than diminished the swim- 
ming of his head. A drowsiness seemed to hover over 
him, his eyelids were ready to fall. The Carpenter’s 
Arms is a favourite house of call with carters, drovers 
and gypsies on their way to and from Christchurch and 
the New Forest. It is a free house, and is kept in the 
old style. This afternoon it was crowded with men 
brought to the district by the races, and Sam appeared 
to be known to most of them. The bar reeked of strong 
tobacco. Black boy and rank shag smoke filled the 
place. Your true countryman loves neither open door 
nor open window, and the atmosphere was thick. Lyd- 
don heard as in a dream Sam boasting interminably 
that his nephew of eight years had spotted the winner 


164 ? 


ALLWARD 


of the Hunt Cup. Then the talk turned as interminably 
on poultry. One man said that a hen of his, a cross 
between a white Wyandotte and a Dorking, laid three 
eggs in one day. “ And how many yolks do you sup- 
pose there was to the three? ” “ Six!” hazarded two 

listeners. “ Nine ! ” said the owner. “ Ah, but they 

freak layers is no good for steady ” began a third 

heavily, during a pause of disbelief. 

“ She never laid no more. I killed her next day. 
But they was girt eggs as big as a swan’s almost.” 

At last the rat-catcher arose, and Lyddon, surprised 
to find himself still awake, went after him into the 
sunlight and east wind. The wind had risen since 
morning, and frisked with the dust loosened by the 
extra traffic, until the road looked like a dust-storm 
in the Sahara. 

His companion’s silence did not trouble the rat- 
catcher, however, who talked cheerfully about a mare 
which he had sold to a farmer. Up the long Bransgore 
hill, bordered by the yellow gorse, they went, past the 
gravel pits, and past the little shop down towards the 
hollies. When they arrived at Mrs. Jeff’s cottage, 
Sam had to shake Lyddon awake. 

Mrs. Jeff, who came out at the shout of her brother- 
in-law, stared at him, her youngest child Vi’let clinging 
on to her skirt. 

“ Motto, is he ? ” 

“ A drop of ale on a broken head,” said Sam. “ He’d 
bin fightin’ ” 

“ Ho, us knows all about that,” said Mrs. Jeff, with 
the smile of incredulity. 4 4 Where’s the gals, Adam? ” 

“ They’re coming behind,” he said drowsily. 

“ Can you walk out to your tan in the bushes, or shall 
Sam help you? ” 

He refused, glassily staring, and walked unsteadily 


ALLWARD 


165 


into the bushes. His head was not too befuddled to 
find his way. He was divided as neatly into two as 
an earwig which continues to move when its grosser 
part has been cut away. He could reason clearly with 
part of his brain, which pointed out to the other part 
that he had been a fool to drink old ale after he had 
had such a thump on his skull. From the contem- 
plation of his own thin-skulledness, his mind, still coolly 
spectator of his torpor, wandered to the consideration 
of skulls in general, from the Danish skulls found in 
Kent dinted with war-axes, to the skulls in museums, 
and he wondered if, when his bones were disturbed in 
centuries to come, those who saw his cranium unfleshed, 
would discover two thickenings where Nature had done 
her best to repair her fault in making the bony pro- 
tection to his brain somewhat thinner than most people’s. 

The fact remained that the ale had reduced him to 
something resembling intoxication. He remembered 
reading once that concussion sometimes rendered a man 
susceptible to alcoholic fumes, and he was now demon- 
strating the fact. He found his tent in the heart of 
the bushes, viewed it as through a waving glass screen, 
and was soon asleep like a log. 

Meanwhile the east wind was as high as ever. It 
rushed never-ceasingly, shaking the hollies, bending 
their stiffness, whistling through the gorse, beating 
down the low, dried grass, driving dead leaves of the 
past winter before it as dust before a besom. Nothing 
was too high for it or too low for it. There was a 
joy of life in it, a keen edge warmed by the sun, 
which sent the larks up to battle with it, and set the 
colts galloping backwards and forwards to their dams. 
It made cloud shadows race after one another across 
the boggy moor, and patch it with blue and gold and 
brown and dusk, till one hill looked like the robe of 


166 


ALLWARD 


the princess, and the next the drab gown of the gypsy. 
It played fantastic tricks with sun and shade and hol- 
low and hill. It leapt on and on, rejoicing in havoc, 
stirring young blood, rousing the passion of spring in 
the ancient earth. 

Mary, Em’ly, Alius and ’Enry walked back. Mary 
had avoided her former swain when she saw him again 
on the course, and he had gone away sulking. Em’ly, 
beautiful and untroubled by small troubles as any 
goddess, was well pleased with her day, for she had 
the placid nature which rides above the clouds in 
perpetual sunshine. ’Enry was content, for he had 
six shillings in his pocket and the memory of a fight. 
Alius was in a tiresome mood, Mary frankly dejected. 
To add to her depression ’Enry had related how his 
friend had been recognised and spoken to by a real 
raunie. Mary was in fears for the safety of the sup- 
posed refugee. Who knew whether to-morrow it might 
not be necessary for him to pack up and go far away? 
She had never thought of the possibility of his being 
recognised when she had pressed him to accompany 
them to the races. 

They walked up the long hill in silence, passed con- 
stant^' by returning motors. The evening was drawing 
in, the sky was thinly spread with windy-looking clouds, 
in the shape of a fan and caught with the rosy fire of 
the setting sun. When they reached the top of the 
plateau, however, and turned down towards Mrs. Jeff’s 
cottage, they perceived that the horizon was dark. A 
heavy mantle of smoke lay along it like a horizontal 
column, opaque, turbid, ominous. Wisps of it drifted 
into their faces, the acrid smell of burning was in 
the air, light ashes were whirled past them on the high 
wind. 


ALLWARD 


167 


“ There — another fire ! ” said Em’ly. “ This yer 
wind have caught it. That’s why we seen so few men 
about, they’re gone to beat it out, you may be sartain.” 

When they got to the road which separated the holm 
from the village, they could see that the fire had at- 
tacked the further holm which stretches away to 
Holmesley. The smoke lay like a pestilence against the 
clear blue sky and windy, pink tresses of thin cloud 
higher up. 

Mrs. Jeff stood at her door expectant of them, her 
sun-bleached hair blown back from her reddened face. 

The two children ran to her, and began to pour out 
the history of the day, but Mrs. Jeff silenced them with 
sharp good-temper. 

“ There’s tea waiting for you inside, chavis. Ker 
see now, and come in. You too, ’Enry; I tauld yer 
mammy you was goin’ to bide with granny till she 
come for you.” 

“ Where’s dad and the boys ? ” Em’ly asked, follow- 
ing them into the cottage with Mary. Yi’let sat 
already at table, her huge black eyes fixed on the new- 
comers. 

“ Gone to beat out the fire.” 

“ It’s a big one, ain’t it? ” 

“ Started in two places to onst,” Mrs. Jeff replied. 
“ Course ’twould burn a day like this, with everything 
dry as straw and a high wind. And they as set it 
going knew it.” 

“ The keepers was watching yesterday.” 

“ The keepers ! ” Mrs. Jeff said contemptuously. 
“ ’Tis their watching what does it.” 

“ And all the birds buildin’ there, and the young 
birds,” said Mary regretfully. “ I hates to see green 
wood burn. Last year there was a lark what wouldn’t 
leave her eggs. I found her next day, half burnt she 


168 ALLWARD 

was, and dead on top of her eggs. The fire’d gone 
clean over her.” 

44 Adam’ll have to move,” said Alius. 44 He’s right 
in the middle of the holm up there. I lay he’s helpin’ 
to beat it out.” 

44 He’s no good for nothin’,” said Mrs. Jeff, offering 
’Enry, her favourite grandson, a large slice of bread 
spread with dripping. 44 When he come here, he’d been 
drinkin’ himself silly and could hardly hold ’isself 
straight.” 

Mary jumped up suddenly, her face white beneath 
the tan. 

44 Suppose he don’t know ! ” she burst out. 

44 Sit down, you silly gal,” said her aunt. 44 How 
could he help hearin’ a noise like that, if he was ever 
so drunk? They hollies crackles and bangs like moskys 
goin’ off.” 

44 But you don’t know where he is,” Mary answered 
swiftly. 44 He’s right in the middle of the hollies and 
fuzzes. He chose it because it was so deep in.” Her 
chair fell with a clatter as she pushed it aside, and 
she had gone through the always open door of the 
dwelling- room before any of them could offer advice. 

44 Mary ! Mary ! ” they shouted after her, but she 
was out of hearing. 

44 No, you don’t, ’Enry!” said his grandmother, ex- 
asperated. 44 Sit down, chavis. Not one step does you 
go until you’ve finished eating. Alius, you naughty 
girl, you come back this minnit.” 

44 He wasn’t drunk when he left us,” Em’ly said. 

44 Then he got drinkin’ with Sam. Drunk he was 
when he come home. I watched him as he jailed off, 
walking careful as if the ground was a rope and he 
tryin’ to balance on it. But he’s right enough. Mary’s 
divvy about him. She’ll have them all sayin’ she’ve a 


ALLWARD 169 

took up with him afore long. If Mary was my gal 
she’d a-had some chastisement from me afore now.” 

“ I wants to go with Mary,” said Alius, beginning 
to pout. 

“ You’ll have to want, my gal,” said her mother. 

Alius was the favourite, and knew that her mother’s 
harshness, once she had fled, would not very long sur- 
vive her return. She wriggled herself free, and darted 
out across the strip of green, across the road and into 
the hollies after her cousin. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Mary ran on, hatless, her black hair whipping into 
her eyes. The further holm was attacked, but she had 
first to thread a circuitous way through the nearer, 
following the winding paths made by the feet of genera- 
tions of forest ponies and gypsies. The donkeys had 
nibbled the walls of green until they were compact and 
smooth, and the hollies grew in dense groups with hol- 
low underspaces so as to form what were almost little 
dwelling houses or natural sheds, roofed and walled in, 
the breach which was the opening serving as both door 
and window. In just such a natural harbour had 
Lyddon made his camp, and if he were really in such a 
condition that the crackling of the fire did not wake 
him, he might find himself in a cage of fire, for she 
remembered that furze bushes bordered one side of his 
camp, and these bum steadily when they have caught. 

But the hollies would warn him, she hoped, for they 
bum noisily, as if in agony. There is a peculiar spirit 
resident in hollies which is friendly to human life, and 
these groves had harboured nomads for centuries, had 
screened the embraces of wild lovers on summer noons, 
had witnessed gypsy honeymoons beneath the stars, had 
seen the birth of babes and the death of the aged. 

She came into the opening at last, where an arm of 
boggy country separates the two holms. She was too 
impatient to cross by the ford higher up, but went 
light-footed across ground which rocked and quivered, 
or over the silver green of the bog moss, or from tussock 
to tussock where the brown bog ooze lay exposed. The 
170 


ALLWARD 171 

incense of the golden-budded myrtle came up to her like 
the spirit of the marshes. 

The fire was on the hill ; she heard its sinister crack- 
lings, the flares and explosions of it, and saw its yellow 
tongues shooting up into the darkening sky. Quite 
close a rabbit fled past her, the plovers cried in distress. 
She came nearer, and smoke made her eyes smart; the 
air was full of ashes. 

Then she began to plunge into the hollies themselves, 
working uphill. She came on charred hollies, still smok- 
ing, their burnished green destroyed for ever. Some 
were scorched brown and had their leaves still on them ; 
others, directly in the path of the fire, were black skele- 
tons, with grey filaments for leaves, the trunks still glow- 
ing when the wind caught them, and sending up little 
threads of flame and smoke. The furze bushes were 
blackened too, their golden blossom devoured by the 
fiercer gold of the flames. Her path lay between them, 
and she pushed on. The heat was considerable; the 
charred vegetation brushed against her like a hundred 
points of charcoal. But the fire had nothing left to 
consume here ; the wind had borne it onward, greedily. 

Mary became seized with a fear born less of knowl- 
edge and experience than an instinct, a stirring of 
some atavistic fear of fire. The air was full of it, the 
dumb animals felt it; there was the suffering of grow- 
ing things all about her, mute, unexpressed, an atmo- 
sphere of fear. Never had she heard of any human 
being being caught in a forest fire. But though he 
had out-of-door instincts, this big stranger was an 
alien. The forest could not warn him by instinct 
as she would have awakened one whose blood was forest 
blood. And he, who never drank, was drunk, his ears 
sealed, perhaps. 

She sped on, and at the next turn of the path came 


172 


ALLWARD 


face to face with a youth. His face was smutty, 
his hands were black, and he carried a half-charred 
bough. 

“ It’s Tom ! 55 she exclaimed. 

“ Where be you goin’, then? ” her cousin asked. 

Her words came excitedly — < 

“ You seen Adam? ” 

“ I don’t know as I have. Was he heatin’? ” 

“ His tent was in there.” 

“ Well, I allow he’s moved it.” 

“ It’s all burnt? ” 

He jerked his hand backwards. “ Up there right 
across the holm. I’m goin’ round to beat on the other 
side. They’ll get it under soon now. You can’t go 
into they hollies, my girl; you’d catch afire. There’s 
smouldering stuff everywhere.” 

She knew she could not, and stood still, inarticulate. 
Tom Jeff took her arm, and pulled her good-humouredly 
after himself. 

“ Ov along, my rakli!” One is jocose in Romany 
in this half-gypsy village. “ The mush is all right, he’s 
saved his tan ; and if it’s burnt, a couple of sacks’ll make 
a new ’un.” 

“ It’s not the tan, it’s him. He was drunk.” 

“Drunk?” Tom looked puzzled and scared. Then 
he laughed. “ You’ll find him up amongst the beaters, 
Mary.” 

She shook herself free. 

“ I’m goin’ up here first.” 

“ You ain’t.” 

“ I be. Lemme go, Tom.” 

She wrenched herself loose a second time, and ran up 
the path of smoking desolation. 

Tom stared after her, and then went on his way. 
After all, Mary could look after herself. He thought 


ALLWARD 


173 


her on a wild-goose chase, though the possibility that 
a drunken man asleep in the hollies might be stupefied 
still more with smoke and entrapped gave him an uneasy 
feeling at the back of his self-assurance. 

He turned round to shout “ Mary ! ” but she was 
already out of sight. So he went on, thrashing to 
right and left of him at the blackened furze, and mut- 
tering to himself. In common with most of the Thor- 
neyhill folk he looked upon Lyddon with suspicion, and 
resented his intimacy with Mary. Let a girl stick to 
her own folk. 

Mary hurried on. She scarcely reasoned why she did 
so — she was driven by instinct rather than emotion, the 
instinct which keeps a bird hovering about its nest in 
times of danger, the instinct to protect that which is 
loved, the instinct which links brute to man and jungle 
to village. Then she came to a place which was im- 
passable. The path was swallowed up in the midst of 
the smoking ruin. Grey ashes like phantoms shivered 
on the wind, the furze was blackened, the hollies still 
quivering with sparks where the wind caught the stand- 
ing and blackened branches. Sparks flew into her face 
and into her hair; she smelt the odour of burnt hair, 
of singed clothing. In here, just in here, had been 
his tent, further in. If she could brave the plunging 
through, she could see for herself. But the smoke had 
inflamed her eyes, ashes had blown into them. She 
turned her back to the wind for a moment and pressed 
her hands over them. Behind her she heard footsteps, 
and guessed that Tom Jeff had turned and come after 
her, to prevent her by force from going farther. She had 
no time to lose, and she wheeled about and, putting 
her arms before her, began to push her way through 
the smoking tangle before her. But her eyes smarted 
so painfully that she could not see, and she fumbled 


174 


ALLWARD 


forward, blinking and guessing. She had to pause, 
and then she felt a grasp on her shoulder. 

“ Lemme go ! ” she said. 

She was swung off her feet and carried backwards, 
and her arms were pinned helplessly. 

She struggled in vain. She was carried back into 
the path, and sat down. 

Angrily she faced the interfering creature, and before 
her reddened eyes could see, she realised that it was 
Lyddon himself, uninjured, sober and cool, though his 
face was like a sweep’s, his eyes bloodshot, like hers, with 
the smoke. 

“ You must come out of here at once,” he said peremp- 
torily. “ Your dress is smouldering, look.” He 
grasped it with his hands and extinguished it, and then 
walked her quickly out of the charred path of the fire. 
They reached the bog, crossed it, and then he pulled 
her down beside him on a tussock of heather on the 
further side. 

“ We’re a pretty pair ! ” he said, looking at her. 

Mary caught hold of his arm, and began to laugh 
and cry together. “ They told me you was drunk. I 
didn’t know where you was,” she said incoherently. 

“ Well, if I’d been asleep in there and caught by 
the fire I think the noise would have awakened me. As 
it was, one of the Sherratt children came to move the 
tent and found me there. What did you expect to find? 
Roast man? You silly child, don’t cry 1 ” 

“ I didn’t know how drunk ” she said between 

her laughter and sobs, as one to whom drunkenness was 
a matter of experience. “ When father gets real motto, 
he wouldn’t hear nuthin’ nor nobody.” 

“ Mary, dear ! ” he said, with sudden huskiness of 
voice. 

Somehow, inevitably, she was clinging to him, and 


ALLWARD 


175 


their lips were together, and though the kiss was acrid 
with smoke and salt with Mary’s tears, it seemed to 
him for a dizzy moment as if all that was sweet and 
wild in the forest were sending a madness which was of 
spring through his veins. 

44 I loves you,” she said, near his throat, in a soft, 
hoarse voice. 

“Mary ” 

64 D’you like me, Adam ? ” 

44 Like you ! ” He took her brown, smoke-grimed 
face in his two hand&, and kissed her again and again, 
almost brutally. 

She shut her eyes, then opened them and smiled. 

44 That’s what I likes ! That’s what I wants ! ” 

He was suddenly sobered a little, and released her. 

44 Well,” he said, with an attempt at a laugh, 
44 you’re satisfied that I wasn’t drunk enough to get 
burnt.” 

She laid her head against his hand. 

44 How did you get drunk, Adam ? ” 

44 1 don’t know that it could be properly called a 
drunk,” said he, deliberately light in manner. 44 Your 
Alf got in a good blow, and I suppose it made me carry 
liquor badly.” 

44 Then it was becos of me? ” she said, with glowing 
eyes, looking up at him. 

44 1 must get Alf to give me lessons.” 

44 He ain’t none of mine,” she said, frowning. 

44 Oh, come, after what you told me.” 

44 1 never told you chee. I never told you nothin’.” 

44 Yes, you did,” he said half-teasingly. 

She was silent for a moment. 

44 How did you know where I was ? ” she asked. 

44 1 met Tom Jeff. He should have stopped you.” 

44 He tried to.” 


176 


ALLWARD 


“ Silly child,” he said, in an access of tenderness 
which got the better of prudence. 

“ Kiss me,” she said crudely. 

“ It isn’t wise,” he said unsteadily. 

“ Who cares ? I loves you, Adam. I never kissed 
a man afore, I swear to God I haven’t. I shouldn’t 
have cared if I’d a-catched afire in they hollies. I’d 
hold my hand in fire for you.” 

She put her arms about his neck and her face close 
to his. 

He bent back, tried to draw them away. 

“ No, dear, you don’t understand.” 

She loosened her hold and gazed at him. 

“ You don’t want me to touch you. You’re a gennle- 
man.” 

It was said without rancour or bitterness. 

He seized her shoulders roughly, and kissed her now 
passive mouth. Prudence, already wavering, shook her 
skirts and left him. He was mad for the moment, and 
the madness was for a girl with a dirty face and tangled 
hair. No; to do her justice, it was more than that. 
Mary was sweet, Mary had the allurement of the youth 
of all the ages, and her eyes were wet with the love of 
all wild things that love generously and passionately. 
She was sweet with the sweetness of bracken and of 
heather, she w T as life and vitality incarnate, she was 
yielding and caressing as the strong spring wdnd 
from the east which had carried fire with it over the 
moor. 

“ It’s gettin’ dark,” she whispered at last. 

It was. And the wdnd had lessened, as if the depar- 
ture of daylight had weakened it. 

He sat up, and pushed back his hair from his fore- 
head. 

“ What’s to be done? ” he said. 


ALLWARD 177 

“ There’s your tent,” she said. “ Where are you 
atching? ” 

“ Near the road, by the Sherratts’ camp. I didn’t 
mean that; I meant what are you and I to do? ” 

“ I’m goin’ back home, to aunt’s,” she said simply. 

He sat silent, his big reddish head thrust a little for- 
ward, his long, lean legs straight out before him. 

“ Look here, Mary,” he said. “ This is impossible.” 

“ What’s impossible? ” she said, flushing. “ There’s 
no law ag’in kissing, is there? ” 

“ It isn’t fair on you.” 

“ I asked you to kiss me; now, didn’t I? ” 

“ I’d no right to.” 

“ You’d the right any man has to kiss a girl what 
asks him to. I’m bound to be kissed some time, look. 
Alf Stace tried to kiss me to-day. All he kissed was the 
wind.” 

“ Alf Stace wants to marry you,” he said bluntly. 

“ It takes two to marry,” said Mary, raising her 
clear brown eyes. “ Do you think I’m one of them 
what’s always thinkin’ what this and that means, and if 
this and that’ll be a good thing or not? I knows you 
ain’t goin’ to marry a traveller girl. I’m glad you 
ain’t. I can look after myself. We gypsies is made 
to look after ourselves. What I gives you, I gives you. 
If I wants to walk through that holly there, I can. If 
I wants your kisses, and you wants to give them, I’m 
not ashamed of it. I didn’t know you liked me that 
way till to-night, p’raps ; I didn’t know I liked you that 
way neither.” She came nearer, her cheek against his. 
“ Don’t you worry yourself, Adam,” she said in her 
husky, sweet young voice. 

He took her two hands without looking at her. 

“ I wish you’d say you was fond of me, Romany 
way,” she said. 


178 


ALLWARD 


“ What is that? ” 

“ I koms tuty,” she said in a voice just above a 
whisper. 

“ What does that mean, dearest ? ” 

“ It means somethin’ more than lovin’ or likin’. It 
means the same as wantin’. It sounds more natural 
like, than anything else in the world. It sounds the 
way a child wants its mammy and dry dust wants the 
rain.” 

“ I believe that is the way I love you,” he said. 

It was the first time that he had used the word, and 
now he had a quick pang of regret that he had done so. 
He had the feeling of broken confidence, a man’s fear of 
a new and dubious relationship, and with it all the 
knowledge that he had no right to accept anything from 
her. He felt unhappy, disturbed. 

“ Mary, you must go home.” 

“ I’m goin’.” She stood up. “ What about your 
bit of food? ” 

“ I can make it myself to-night.” 

“ Awright.” 

Her fine instinct told her that he would rather be 
left alone. She accepted his decision. The habit of 
obedience to the man was strong in her. She made no 
attempt to delay her going. 

“ Good-night, Adam.” 

She began to walk away, but, still moved by the 
feeling that he had done her an injury, he got up in 
an impulse of remorse. Yet what could he do, what 
could he say? 

“ You are not vexed with me? ” he said, pursuing 
her, and putting his big hands upon her young 
shoulders. 

She smiled through tears ready to fall. 

“ Course not,” she said. 


ALLWARD 


179 


Then she disappeared down the dusky path. 

The scent of the bog myrtle was strong about him. 
They had bruised the plants with their feet. Some- 
where a peewit cried, and away to the north he heard an 
owl uttering its call to a phantom mate. He began to 
move in the direction of camp. 


CHAPTER XIV 


A bumble-bee came blundering into the tent, and the 
sun came with it. Lyddon sat up. His head was 
still painful, and he had slept badly and gone to bed 
supperless. He foresaw the inevitable danger if he 
continued to see Mary as much as formerly. Yet he 
saw no way of avoiding that danger unless he went 
away, unless he put the forest behind him. For the 
threads which held him to his present existence were 
intertwined with those which bound him to Mary. The 
forest had become Mary for him, and Mary the forest. 
She had become the embodiment of sun and shade, of 
young leaves moving in the wind, of bog myrtle and 
heather, of gorse and of white-thorn. He shut his eyes 
and felt the blood mounting into his face as he remem- 
bered her and the sweetness of her, and her face like 
a dusky rose, the smell of wood smoke which clung to 
her, and the feel of her body in his arms. Mary was 
dangerous, and more dangerous because she stood for 
what was innocent and wild and free. 

He made no effort to evoke the arguments which 
civilised society would bring against such an incon- 
gruous passion, her alien blood, her primitive manners, 
her speech. With the warm ghost of her still at his 
heart these idiosyncrasies appeared whimsical details, 
differences from civilised women, which were as essen- 
tially part of her charm as the brambles and tangle are 
part of the forest. Uncivilised she might be, but not 
vulgar. Primitive she might be, but not tawdry. 
Coarse of speech, perhaps, but fine of spirit. 

Danger lay in argument. The truth was that she 
180 


ALLWARD 


181 


was not out of her setting. He was, and felt him- 
self the anomaly rather than Mary. A gulf remained 
between them. He could not wrong Mary by bring- 
ing her into the world he had left behind him (God 
forbid!), and he could not follow her entirely into hers. 
She recognised that as well as himself — she had not 
considered the possibility of a marriage between them. 
She had said, “ I can take care of myself.” At the 
same time he seemed to hear Miss Price’s crude, “ Don’t 
forget that Mary has a character to lose.” 

The bumble-bee was still bumping his velvet body 
against the tent, unable to find the opening. He remem- 
bered that in Mary’s world this was a sign of a stranger’s 
coming. In her world fate cast shadows before it, and 
Nature lent itself in a myriad ways to warn the initiated 
of what lay on their path. Stars, insects, flowers, 
dreams, were all foretellers of the future, for like all 
people who live close to the earth, gypsies are fatalists. 
Something of their belief had crept into him, and the 
enervating drowsiness of the spring morning wooed 
him to believe that it would be better to await events, 
to wait and see what was in store for him. The bumble- 
bee found its way out at last. Its moment had arrived, 
his moment would arrive. Mary’s moment would arrive 
too. 

Other things arose in his mind. With his wife’s death 
many knots had been cut. He would write to his solic- 
itors. The Belloni Syndicate business must be settled 
up. He must withdraw. Any work that he did in the 
future must be non-commercial, done away from the 
foot-lights, achieved for the pleasure of achievement 
alone. Success must never again chain him down. 

As for money, with his resurrection, he could draw 
again upon his bank. The Belloni shares and other 
investments, in spite of the inroads which had been 


i8a 


ALLWARD 


made upon his capital by his wife’s extravagance and 
the cost of the legal proceedings, would yield enough 
to enable him to live as a poor man all the days of 
his life. He almost laughed aloud. What a cobweb 
his prison had been. It had been easy to break through. 
True, his wife had stood between him and freedom, but 
the rest — the phantom conventions, the property and 
obligations to Society and the other shibboleths had 
broken before him like shadows. 

He dressed and went up to Miss Price’s house. The 
old gentlewoman was out in her garden — she never lay 
abed after half-past six. 

44 You’ve nearly finished,” she said. 44 You have 
worked at twice the pace of the ordinary working man. 
It only proves everything that I have always thought 
about the British artisan. A gentleman is conscientious. 
What are you going to do when you have done with my 
coach-house? ” 

44 Nothing! ” 

“ Paint, I suppose,” she said, with a sniff. 44 1 wish 
I could see some of your painting.” 

44 1 shall have enough to keep me in idleness, if I live the 
life of a vagrant,” he returned, smiling. 

44 What a pity. You are an excellent workman. 
Well, I hope you will come and see me sometimes. This 
morning I should like you to come in to breakfast with 
me. I have attacks of loneliness sometimes. I often 
think I shall have to adopt a child. You’ve break- 
fasted? Well, have another. I want to talk to you.” 

He yielded, and found himself seated opposite her at 
a sunny breakfast-table. Tulips, pink as the roses on 
the cups and saucers, graced the centre, a silver coffee- 
pot stood over the blue flame of a silver lamp. Every- 
thing spoke of comfort, of taste. Lyddon was served 
with kidneys and bacon. Old-fashioned water-colours 


ALLWARD 


183 


and daguerreotypes hung on the walls, a family portrait 
over the mantelpiece, and a portrait of King Edward in 
a silver frame just beneath it, between two Dresden 
shepherds. There was an air of old-world gentility 
about the room, far removed from the suburban affecta- 
tions of modern chintz and acquired simplicity. 

“ Isn’t it pleasant to be civilised again? ” said she ma- 
liciously. 44 Don’t you relish the flesh-pots? Wouldn’t 
you enjoy a hot bath? ” 

44 Are you acting the Delilah? ” he asked. 44 In any 
case I resent the last imputation. It is one of the delu- 
sions of the Englishman that one can get clean by soak- 
ing in water.” 

44 How long is it since you drank out of china ? ” 

44 Some months now.” 

44 Well, I admit that it has suited you. But you are 
out of place, my dear man, out of place. I love these 
hawkers, but I should be play-acting if I went and lived 
in a tent.” 

44 Every existence has its discomforts,” he said. 44 The 
discomforts of living the life I’m living weigh light 

against those I have had as accompaniments to this ” 

He indicated the luxuries of the breakfast-table. 

44 Do you regard it as a half-way house, or as a per- 
manent philosophy? ” 

44 Isn’t everything a half-way house as we come to it? 
If we have infinity before and behind us, any point is 
a centre.” 

44 Evasive. You are not honest with yourself. You 
interest me. You are not one of those dreadful people 
who try to live the simple life, and write and tell all 
their friends about it, and have electric cookers, and go 
home when it rains. You don’t pose. You give me the 
impression of an Ishmael with a religion, a kind of mys- 
ticism. A large, irresponsible Ishmael.” 


184 


ALLWARD 


“ Why attempt to find a label for me? ” he asked, 
with an uncomfortable smile. 44 I like to be out of doors, 
that is all. There is no mystery about me. I like to 
wake up and feel the ground beneath me, and to look 
out and see the bracken and gorse, and to be able to 
move where I like, to feel the wind and see the stars at 
night. I’ve wanted to all my life: to live the life I’ve 
got before me now. I couldn’t before.” 

“ And if you marry ? ” 

44 My wife is dead.” 

44 You will marry again,” she said. 44 And she will 
drag you back into the commonplace. All married life, 
however romantic, does.” 

44 I don’t intend to marry.” 

44 You will marry or grow inhuman.” 

46 Why? ” 

44 Absolute freedom is another word for loneliness,” 
she said, 44 and loneliness is the worst prison of 
all.” 

That was true. He remembered the horrible lone- 
liness he had experienced the first evening in the holms, 
the evening that Mary had not come ; or was it that he 
had missed Mary? Now he thought of it, it seemed 
to him that he must always have wanted her, that she 
had attracted him from the beginning. Mary ! He felt 
a rush of desire for her, for her brown face flushed with 
rose, for the little throat against which the beads lay 
red, and the hands with the silver rings. He grew sud- 
denly impatient of this nice old lady with her arch sub- 
tleties. The room began to suffocate him. Miss Price 
was still talking. 

44 And how old are you? ” she was saying. 

44 Thirty-two,” he answered. (And Mary must be 
half his age, he added in mental commentary.) 

44 Of course you must marry,” wound up Miss Price. 


ALLWARD 185 

He had missed the chief part of her discourse. 44 But 
not out of your class.” 

44 Whom P ” he asked ironically. 

“ I know a woman — a girl, whom I should like you 
to meet. She is exceptional — — ” 

44 Eccentric? ” 

44 I said exceptional. She is clever and pretty, in- 
clined to humbug herself, but gold at bottom. You 
would do her a world of good, and she you. She is a 
dear, charming girl, and has the modern affectation of 
being a devotee to the outdoor life. She has camped 
out. Loves it. There is the ideal companion for you. 
You could wander where you like. If babies came — well, 
of course, you’d have to modify your existence. Her 
father was a parson here, years ago, a Mr. Hinton, an 
old friend of mine.” 

44 You are not talking of Eleanor Hinton?” he ex- 
claimed, suddenly awake. 

44 You know her.” 

He flushed slightly. 

44 We are old friends.” 

44 You are never Richard Lyddon? The genius — the 
wireless man ? Oh, I am so sorry.” 

44 My name is Lydd<m,” he said. 44 You needn’t apol- 
ogise.” 

Miss Price began to laugh weakly. 44 And you 
mended my bell ! ” 

44 Satisfactorily, I hope.” 

44 You were engaged to Eleanor once ” 

44 Twelve years ago. She broke it off, and I mar- 
ried.” 

44 It was a boy and girl affair? ” 

44 Absolutely. We kept up our friendship.” 

44 Ah yes,” said Miss Price slowly. 44 Which there 
was an attempt to misinterpret when ” 


186 


ALLWARD 


44 It was not brought into court,” he interposed. 

44 1 heard of it. So all that unhappy business is over. 
Your wife is dead?” 

44 Yes.” 

He waited impatiently for her to rise from table. He 
disliked this opening of closed chapters. 

44 Do you know that Eleanor is staying near here? ” 

44 1 do.” 

44 Then you have seen her? Please forgive my curios- 
ity. But this is such a coincidence, so strange. You 
must forgive me for having acted the bull in the china- 
shop — appeared so impertinent, so ” She broke off. 

44 Of course, you wouldn’t know,” he said. 44 But you 
will excuse me, if I have to get to work? ” 

She rose, at last. 44 1 am going to call on Eleanor 
to-day in Bournemouth. I drive as far as Christchurch. 
Am I to say that I have met you or not? ” 

44 Say exactly what you please, Miss Price,” he said, 
with inner annoyance. 44 Eleanor is coming over on 
Sunday to see me.” 

44 Then use my house, unless you want to give her tea 
in your tent. I shall be out.” 

44 You are very kind. But I wish you were going to 
be in.” 

44 You are both old enough to dispense with a chap- 
erone,” she said. 44 And unconventional enough too. 
I’ll stay to see her, and then run away. It’s my day 
for tea-ing at Bransgore, and going on to Evensong 
from there. You, I suppose, are a Pagan? ” 

44 It depends what you mean by the word.” 

44 Well, go back to my coach-house. Some day I shall 
scribble up in pencil, 4 Richard Lyddon, his work.’ I 
will tell Eleanor to come here. She is with her aunt, 
a woman I detest. All sentimentality and grey chiffon.” 

Miss Price rammed on her old straw hat, took up the 


ALLWARD 


187 


shears she had left in the porch, and returned to the 
garden. She turned round as he was disappearing into 
the stable-yard to call out — 

44 When are the Jameses going up country? ” 

“ I don’t know,” he replied. He was thankful that 
Mary’s name had not this time been dragged into the 
conversation. He liked Miss Price, in spite of her pro- 
clivity for cross-examination. He had a dislike, which 
was almost morbid, of sharing his private affairs with 
others. He swore inwardly at Miss Price, while he ap- 
preciated the fact of her kindness. He was easily im- 
patient of the interest of others in himself, like many 
other reserved men. But it was impossible to be long 
angry with Miss Price. She was such a benevolent old 
Tory, so tactless, so sunny. 

He saw nothing more of her that day. As evening 
approached, he wondered if he should find Mary in 
his tent when he returned. What should he say 
to her? What could he trust himself to say to her? 
At any rate, Miss Price had acted like a tonic. She 
had shaken him out of the fatalistic mood of the morning 
when he had faced the question. 

But Mary was not in the tent when he returned. That 
she had been was evident, because the pot was boiling 
over the fire, the frying-pan had been scoured, and the 
interior tidied. Was she waiting until he sent for her? 
One or two of the Sherratt children, dirty as ever, were 
peering into his tent. 

44 Have you seen Mary James? ” he asked them. 

44 No,” they answered. 

He ate his supper, and then got up and went out 
restlessly. Her withdrawal had made his intended 
course of behaviour impossible. He had expected to 
find her ready for him as she had been found ready 
every other evening, and he had rehearsed his self-denial. 


188 


ALLWARD 


But she was not here, and he forgot the self-denial and 
was only impatient that she had not come. Spring 
was at the very door of the tent. Outside the little 
structure he stood for a moment, still and listening. 
The birds had sung madly all day, the larks with their 
breasts to the blue, the thrushes and blackbirds, the 
robins and the chaffinches in the hedges and hollies not 
far from the nests which held their joy. But now all 
the world was silent, listening with him. The evening 
was full of that subtle excitement, that spirit of youth 
which he and Mary had confessed to each other weeks ago, 
when they had sat at the wood’s edge that warm Feb- 
ruary day. Now it was intensified. It urged him, it 
freed him, it made him reckless, it made him conscious 
of the essentials which most men miss. Once, at least, 
every year, spring comes to the heart and whispers, 
“ Break your shackles — there is only one spring, did you 
but know it.” He felt that he needed to be off, towards 
the world’s end — but not alone. He wanted Mary, the 
incarnation of the forest, with him — to journey into all 
the forests of the earth — not the tropical forests, 
but forests which knew rain, which knew frosts that 
they might rejoice in spring; forests, where there could 
be the eternal incense of fires kindled by vagrant 
hands. 

The gorse filled the air with its warm scent as of 
cocoanut groves. The air was full of it. A hawthorn 
near by, growing out of the thick of the hollies, was 
already showing clusters that looked as though the 
may, usually so dilatory, would be in bloom by May 
Day. Then his eye caught something white in the bush 
beside it. It was a strip of rag. He remembered sud- 
denly that Mary had on one occasion shown him the 
way in which her people indicated to their comrades 
the way they had taken if chance had divided them on 


ALLWARD 


189 


the road. The sign was of twigs, or stones, or leaves, 
or paper placed on the path or wayside in a manner 
which would point the direction. He approached the 
bush — yes, the ends of the rag were secured to the holly 
leaves by pin-thorns. The rag pointed east and west — 
east to the burnt holms, west to the road and the village. 
He understood. She had chosen this shy, furtive way 
of telling him that she would await him at the spot 
where they had sat the night before. 

He set off, walking swiftly. He went through the 
prickly ways towards the arm of bog, threading his 
way through hollies and gorse and heather, not yet 
so impenetrable as when the bracken should have grown. 
He was right, she was there, he saw her coloured head- 
kerchief moving behind a clump of gorse. 

She stood still, her face turned towards him, expect- 
ant and yet not moving. 

44 You meant me to come? ” he said, taking both her 
hands. 

44 Yes — I put the pattrin there for you. If you 
hadn’t wanted to come, you needn’t have. But I wished 
you to come. I wished it hard.” 

The glow had died out of her face to-day. She was 
passive, more lifeless than he had seen her. She gave 
a hasty glance about her. 

44 Let’s get away out of yer,” she said. 

44 Why? ” 

44 Alius seen you an’ me last night.” 

He reddened. 

44 She seen you kiss me,” said Mary in a level voice. 

44 Did she tell her mother ? ” 

44 Not yet. But she can’t kip her mouth shut.” 

44 Would it do any good if I spoke to her? ” 

44 Not a scrap.” 

44 The little devil ! ” 


190 


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“ She don’t mean no harm, she’s on’y a chavi. Mis- 
chievous, she is.” 

His face darkened. The fact that they had been seen, 
vulgarised the affair. 

44 I wish we was back in Verely,” she said passionately. 
44 I hates Tharneyhill. There’s no peace here. I likes 
the trees, and the quiet.” 

They made their way along the heather path to the 
north, where the hollies and gorse grew denser. The pee- 
wits flew up at their approach, crying peevishly. Up 
on the hill was the blackened ruin of yesterday’s 
fire. 

44 Look ! ” said Mary, pointing to their feet. A patch 
of blue shone there — dog-violets growing together 
thickly. 

He stooped to pick them. 

44 No, don’t pick they,” she said, putting her hand 
on his arm. 44 They’re pretty, but it’s not lucky to 
pick them. They’re deceitful. The sweet ones is all 
right, but the dog-vi’lets deceitful.” 

He looked at her. 

44 Did you put witchcraft upon me to bring me to- 
night, Mary? ” 

44 No,” she said simply. 44 1 just wanted you.” There 
was a catch in her throat. 

44 Sit down,” he ordered her. 44 1 want to talk to you. 
Sit on the violets. We are going to put deceit beneath 
us — so it will be symbolical.” 

She sat down obediently, and he opposite to her. 

44 How old are you? ” he said, looking into her eyes, 
which were partly wet with tears. 

44 Sixteen — no, seventeen,” she said, with a little choke 
and a smile. 44 Dad can’t never remember my birthday. 
But he thinks it was somewheres in the spring.” 

44 And I’m thirty-two.” 


ALLWARD 


191 


She looked a little frightened, and he pulled one of 
her hands into his and put it on his knee. 

“ Mary, dear, we’ve got such a lot to talk out.” 

“ Don’t see what there is to talk about,” said she, with 
the same wild animal look of alarm. 

44 Yes, there is. I don’t want us to blind ourselves. 
It is very difficult not to do that when we want each 
other as you and I want each other. I don’t wish to 
make you unhappy. I don’t wish to make myself un- 
happy either.” 

44 No,” said Mary, her eyes still widened as if in appre- 
hension of what was coming, her hand making a move- 
ment of escape. 

44 Listen.” He held the hand firmly. 44 You and I 
are at cross-roads. We must either go in separate 
directions, or together. We’ve got to think it out. 
Your people and mine are as far apart as sea and land. 
Mine are house-dwellers, church-goers, citizens, respecta- 
ble, middle-class law-abiders. I don’t happen to be, but 
that is beside the question for the minute. Yours have 
disliked houses, despised property which was not mova- 
ble, and wandered from century to century, hating 
everything which mine prized. Your people are of 
another race. There is different blood in us.” 

44 1 knows that,” said Mary, half-understanding. 
44 Gypsy blood ain’t gaujo blood. In the old times my 
folks wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with gaujo blood. But 
now we’re none of us like that. There ain’t no pure 
bloods left now.” 

44 Yet,” said Lyddon, 44 you and I have come together 
somehow, because we are male and female as much as 
for any reason, and because it is spring-time, and — 
hang it, because you and I have a good deal in common. 

I am in love with you, and because I am in love with 
you, the trees mean you, the wind means you, the wood 


192 


ALLWARD 


smoke means you, the furze blossom means you; and I 
can’t sleep for remembering your kisses and your hands 
and your kind, pretty eyes, and your little silver rings 
and all the other phenomena which, taken together, mean 
Mary.” 

She made no answer. 

44 But there will be difference of blood between us. 
There will be qualities, instincts in me in which you will 
have no part ; there’ll be that in you which I shall not 
understand, and that will make us strange to each other ; 
there will be times when you will feel horribly lonely 
and misunderstood, and times when I must feel the same. 
Behind you are your grandfather and great-grandfather 
and all those dark people of yours which wandered into 
England centuries ago. Behind me are parsons, and 
small squires, and soldiers, and city magnates.” 

44 Are you tellin’ me you don’t want to marry me ? ” 
said Mary. 44 I knows that. Besides, you’re married 
a’ready.” 

The tears dried in her eyes. 44 I told you yesterday 
I didn’t care. What do all that matter? ” 

44 It has got to be considered, if we get married.” 

She turned upon him quickly. 

44 Adam ! What are you sayin’ ! ” 

44 1 mean it,” he said recklessly. 44 There isn’t any 
other way out, that I can see. You and I will marry, 
and we shall have nice, brown children and a cart to 
stow them in, and we will travel over every road that 
ever was made, and keep clear of towns and people 
we dislike. When we want to stop, we’ll stop, when we 
want to go on, we’ll go on.” 

44 You’re talkin’ as if you was divvy,” said she, half- 
laughing, half-crying. 

44 1 tell you what, one day we’ll go to Rumania. 
There are people of yours there, and gorgeous country.” 


ALLWARD 


193 


44 And where’s the money to come from? ” she asked. 

44 That’s more that I’ve got to tell you. My wife is 
dead.” 

She looked at him incredulously. 

44 You’re laughing at me, Adam.” 

44 I swear it’s true. I heard yesterday. Another 
thing, I am not Adam Allward. My name is 
Lyddon.” 

She was silent a moment. Then she said, 44 1 likes 
Adam best. I’m sorry you’se not Adam Allward. Then 
the gavengros isn’t after you ? ” 

44 Not as a criminal.” 

44 Then that was all a fake? You hokkanied the lot 
of us.” 

44 Yes.” 

44 But why was you lyin’ by the road like that? ” 

44 I got a moment of disgust, a frenzy of sickness 
at the whole thing. I was sick of lawyers and scenes 
and beastliness. I was sorry for my wife. Things were 
at a dead end. I hated being the successful man. I 
hated London. I saw suddenly that I had been doing 
the things which tied me down consistently for years. 
I meant to go down to Bournemouth for the week-end. 
And I saw the Forest, and jumped on a mad impulse. I 
couldn’t tell you why. It was a momentary madness. 
I’d been sleeping badly. The thing was going so fast, 
I had an uncontrollable desire to leap out, just while it 
was dashing along — jump out into the woods. It came 
as an idea at first, then something said, 4 Do it ! do it ! ’ ” 

44 Then that money you gave dad — — ” 

44 1 have plenty. Enough to keep us, that is.” 

44 You shouldn’t have telled me all that about you 
not bein’ Allward,” she said slowly. 44 It makes it 
different, look.” 

44 Why does it make it different? ” 


194 


ALLWARD 


“ You tellin’ me huckabens all along, like that.” 

“ Mary — I’m telling you the truth now.” 

“ How’m I to know when you’re tellin’ truth? ” she 
said sombrely. 

He was surprised. He had never thought to chill her 
by his disclosure. The news that his wife was dead 
seemed to her less vital than the fact that he was not 
the malefactor she had thought him. 

“ Look at me ! ” he said. “ Can’t you see that I’m 
truthful? ” 

“ I can’t tell anythink,” she said. Her voice shook. 
“ What d’you want to do with me? ” she said. 

He took her wrists and dragged her close. 

“ I’ve told you,” he said. “ I want to take you away, 
to have you for mine.” 

“ I’ll come with you,” she said, and struggled slightly 
as he held her and kissed her. Then she put both her 
arms about his neck and held him a little away from her. 
“ When’ll we go ? ” she asked tensely. 

“ As soon as they will marry us.” 

She shook herself free, and gave a laugh that was 
near tears. 

“ I telled you yesterday no good ’ud come of me an’ 
you marryin’. You’d always be kind to me, I knows, 
but some day it would be a kindness that would hurt 
worse’n if you was to take a kosht and beat me. What 
should I do, playin’ the rawnie alongside of you? ” 

“ You wouldn’t be playing the raunie. We should 
live much as we’ve been living now, except that we should 
be together.” 

“ There you are,” said Mary, sighing. “ If I did 
marry you, look, I’d like to go to the races in white 
gloves with a pretty dress on and joollry and that, in 
one of them coaches. I’d like to live in a swell van, 
painted beautiful. I’d like to treat them all at the fairs, 


ALLWARD 195 

and to be the Romany rawnie with fine fawnies on my 
fingers. And you’re not that sort.” 

“ Neither are you. You love the quiet camping- 
places, and the tent and the roads.” 

“ Yes, an’ I loves the other too. There’d be times 
when I’d want to dance and ker peeass with the others, 
look.” 

“ But I’ve been telling you that. As for the races > 
you shall go to them as you like.” 

44 I can’t,” she said, after a silence. 

“You would come away with me, without being 
married.” 

44 Yes,” she said, under her breath. 

44 You don’t know what you are saying.” 

44 1 do ! I do ! There’s no man I’d go with but 
you. I’d be true and faithful to you like as if we 
was married.” 

44 You said the other day that your folk weren’t like 
the mumpers, that •” 

44 1 knows,” said Mary, flushing. 44 They’ll scarn 
me.” 

44 Then, dearest ’’ 

44 I’d sooner be scarned by them all, than hated by 
you. You’d hate me one day if you married me, 
look.” 

44 1 should hate myself if I didn’t,” he said passion- 
ately, angry with himself, angry with her. Her very 
resistance of him made him forget that he had ever 
thought of anything but marriage with her. 

44 What’ll you do ? ” she asked timidly, after a long 
pause. 

44 1 don’t know. I’ve got to think.” 

She gave him one of her sweet, illuminating smiles, 
and put her hand on his. 

44 Adam, dear ” 


196 


ALLWARD 


“ Well 

44 I loves you more’n ever for wantin’ to marry me. 
Don’t you see it’s because I loves you — more’n that 
what aunt and they’ll call me, more’n that I care what 
happens to me? ” 

“ It is out of pride, you strange, little witch ” 

She was in his arms. 

44 I must goo,” she said at last. 

44 And to-morrow? ” 


CHAPTER XV 


The sanitary inspector had come, and the word went 
round among the squatters that the 44 boro yooi mush ” 
had arrived, and was in the brick valley on his way to the 
hollies. In the twinkling of an eye those children whose 
cleanliness of hair and person would not bear inspection 
were hustled off to hide in the bushes, and by the time 
that the inspector reached the camp in question, he 
found only the mother or grandmother sitting alone 
in the tent, innocent and loquacious. She didn’t know 
where the chavis had gone, no, not she — but they was 
as clean as soap and water could make them, though 
to buy a bar of soap meant money wanted bad for 
bread to fill their mouths, the Lord knew ! 

And hidden securely in thickets and bushes the touzle- 
headed, filthy children, as healthy as life in the open 
could make them, listened and grinned until a cautious 
cry told them that the coast was clear and the boro yooi 
mush had passed on. 

But Charlotte Cooper, an elderly half-and-half gypsy 
who had fallen on evil days, was serene. She had ex- 
pected a farmer’s daughter who wished to have her for- 
tune told, and her granddaughter Elsie, a girl of nine, 
was clad in a clean print dress, her face well scrubbed. 
When Charlotte had a drinking bout, Elsie was neg- 
lected ; when she was sober again, the child was washed. 
Charlotte was young still, and her body as healthy as 
though she never touched alcohol. She was a woman 
of such cleverness that although she had a past which 
embraced several husbands — so-called — she could go 
197 


198 


ALLWARD 


where she pleased and jet never find any traveller or 
villager in the Forest to miscall or slight her. Her 
daughters, Britannia and Victoria, had been brought 
up sternly and strictly and had married early. Her 
sons were afraid of her, and contributed to her sup- 
port from time to time. In spite of that, and her ex- 
traordinary faculty for drawing money from those she 
“ dukkered ” or begged from she appeared to be poor, 
and when she moved from camp to camp or up to the 
strawberry-fields she bore her tent and worldly posses- 
sions on her back, with the aid of her orphaned grand- 
daughter. Some said she had money hidden in the 
earth, some that she spent all she had on drinking 
bouts; but be that as it may, Charlotte remained in 
poverty. She was well made and had blue eyes, keen as 
a hawk’s; her hair was scarcely grey. The secret of 
her power lay in the fact that she was said to be a 
witch. People in Thorneyhill spoke in lowered voices 
of her, and were afraid to refuse her. They pointed out 
a woman who had been bewitched by her, and had never 
been the same since. Unlike many of the gypsies and 
hawker folk, Charlotte could read and write, and this 
added to her prestige; also the fact that, especially 
when in drink, she could rokker, or talk Romany, so 
deep that few could understand her, in addition to a 
gibberish which some said was “ Injun 99 and some the 
talk “ she’d picked up from furriners.” 

She was difficult to understand even in English, for 
she spoke darkly and rapidly, dealt in hidden meanings 
and parables, and if she wished, invented words and 
phrases intended to mystify her hearer. 

The inspector, honest man, was not afraid of her, 
but he had a sense of humour, and Charlotte knew it, 
and she made it her business to retail caustic anec- 
dotes and entertain him with the gossip of the village 


ALLWAUD 


199 


for a while so as to wheedle tobacco out of him for her 
blackened pipe. Elsie stood by with her freckled face 
all smiling. Her father, Charlotte’s son, had married 
a Scotch tinker woman in the hop-fields, and she showed 
her Gentile blood in her sandy hair and broad cheek- 
bones. 

The tobacco was forthcoming, the boro yooi mush 
went on his way, and Charlotte thanked her stars that 
he had not made his visit the week before. She was safe 
for some time, and in a good temper, which even the 
failure of the farmer’s daughter to appear for the prom- 
ised fortune-telling did not abate. She sent Elsie off 
into the village for half-a-pound of tea and a loaf, and 
sat by herself in the tent of rags and patches she owned, 
smoking and chuckling to herself. 

There was a step outside. 

The old woman assumed a listening attitude, her eyes 
hardened with attention. 

44 Come in, come in ! ” she said. 44 That’s no gaujo step 
I hears — come in, Mary James, and besh alay. I’ve 
bin expectin’ of you for three nights.” 

Mary hesitated. Charlotte Cooper was looked down 
upon with scorn by her respectable aunts, though they 
took care not to offend her. Charlotte had lost caste, 
she ruled by fear, she had the taint of the gaol on 
her. 

44 Come in, my darling,” said Charlotte. 44 Elsie’s 
gone up to the buddiga a minute; you couldn’t have 
chosen a better time. The boro yooi mush was just 
here, and a fine talk we’ve bin havin’. Your name was 
mentioned, my darling. 4 Who’s this that Mary James 
have took up with? ’ says he. 4 Is it a rye? ’ says he; 
4 I always comes to you, Charlotte, for gossip,’ says he, 
laughin’. 4 1 knows nothin’ of Mary James’s business,’ 
says I. 4 I never opens me mouth on other people’s 


200 


ALLWARD 


business, 5 says I. 4 If I did, people’d call me a fool 
instid of the old chovihaun,’ says I. 55 

She patted her closed lips. 44 That’s what gets most 
folks into trouble, Mary James. Don’t you fergit it.” 
With that she made a Rabelaisian allusion in Romany, 
but the joke was so worn that she did not wait for 
applause. 44 Have a bit of tobacco,” she added in the 
same tongue. 

Mary accepted, and began to roll herself a cigarette. 

44 What you come and see me about? ” asked Charlotte 
suddenly, leaning forward and fixing her keen blue eyes 
on Mary’s. 44 You can’t tell me you haven’t come to see 
me. I’ve heard you cornin’ this three evenin’s, with a 
question on your lips. Is it about that rye that 
loves you? D’you want the old chovihaun to dukker 
you ? ” 

Mary’s lips were dry. The woman wore her most 
terrifying expression. Was she about to be cursed? 
Charlotte began to talk to herself in the language that 
was neither Romany nor English, and Mary sat still, 
half wishing that her legs would carry her from the 
tent, but certain that with those uncanny blue eyes 
upon her she would not have the power to move. 

44 What’ll you give me if I dukker you ? ” 

Mary reached in her skirt for a leather purse, but 
the witch put out her hand and stopped her roughly. 
44 1 don’t take money from dark blood,” she said. 44 1 
takes money from the gaujos, but no money from own 
kin. I gives lies to the gaujos, but to you, my girl, I 
shall give the true dookeriben, the Romany sorcery, like 
your granny used to make.” 

44 Is it by cards ? ” said Mary, finding her tongue at 
length. 

44 By cards ! ” Charlotte Cooper screamed, and fixed 
her again with her eyes. 44 A fine wicked old chovi- 


ALLWARD 


201 


haun you think I am ! Cards ! Kekker, my chai ! The 
Devil’s work they are. You’d like the Devil to come and 
take me, I’ll lay. Never you touch cards ! My poor 
sister Leah, that died afore ever you was born, she 
dukkered with cards, and fine she wished she’d never 
touched them when she lay dying over against Beaulieu 
Rails. Nobody was with her but me, and off I sent 
for the parson. 4 Come quick; my only sister is dyin’,’ 
I says, 4 and she can't go. Fightin’ and strugglin’ she 
is,’ I says, 4 but she can’t go.’ He come with me, and so 
soon as he puts his nose inside the tan, 4 1 smell sulphur,’ 
he says. 4 Sulphur ! ’ There it was, and she lyin’ there 
in the tan fightin’ with somethin’ 1 4 Charlotte,’ she says 

to me, 4 fetch me rings, and me brooches, and me bangles, 
and wooser them into the fire ! ’ Fine fawnies she had, 
too, my darling, beautiful silver fawnies, thick and 
precious. Into the fire I throws them, every one. 
4 Throw in my clothes,’ says she. Into the yog they 
goes, and a fine smoke they made. There she was, still 
fightin’, and the parson sat there, frightened he was, 
but not a prayer could he get out. Then I fetches 
out the cards. She screams horrible. 4 In they goes,’ 
I said, and in I puts them. One flies away. It was 
the Ass of Spades. 4 Here’s de little gentleman what’s 
bin the ruin of you,’ I says, and holds him up. 4 In 
goes my black gentleman into the yog.’ ” 

Charlotte came to a pause, dramatic, her blue eyes 
filled with white fire. 

Mary listened, transfixed with horror. 

44 [That was what did it, my darling. She cried for 
joy. 4 I sees heaven,’ she says, and up she gets, and 
into her shoes, and begins to dance. She died happy. 
. • . Ah, don’t you never dukker with cards, my 

darling; it’s the Beng — and you and I know who that 
is, don’t we, my Romany rakli? ” 


202 


ALLWARD 


“ I won’t be dukkered at all,” said Mary, finding her 
husky young voice. 

44 Oh yes, you will, my darling. You will be dukkered, 
because you want to know what will become of you 
and that boro rye of yourn. I seen you in his arms — 
no, you needn’t look like that; I’d no call to move from 
this yer old tan of mine to see what you bin doin’. You 
need a lil; you need a bit of paper what’s goin’ to 
bring you love and diments, an’ chavis and a gold ring.” 

44 I don’t want to have no gold ring,” said Mary 
under her breath. 

44 Yes, you do, chai, you do. You don’t wanter 
be scarned and disclaimed by every one. You don’t 
want them to call you lubbeny. You don’t want ’em to 
say behind their hands, 4 There’s a rakli what ties up to 
any bush.’ You’se proud, my dearie, and it’s pride 
that’s standin’ in your way. Your mother’s folk was 
always proud.” 

Mary’s soft brown eyes were as frightened as a deer’s. 
She let the witch-woman take her hands. Charlotte 
glanced at them, but kept her gaze fixed on the young 
girl’s face. 

44 There’s adders on your path, my darling,” she 
said in a low, hoarse voice. 44 You needs a lil to pro- 
tect yourself. I’ll make you one. A bit of silver I 
needs for that, not because I wants your money for I’ll 
dukker you for nothin’, but silver is moon’s colour, and 
helps it to work. A tringrush, a shilling, will work it, 
my darling.” Her gimlet eyes watched the girl’s hand 
into her skirt and the silver piece extracted from the 
leather purse. She received the shilling, spat upon it, 
and transferred it to her own ragged skirt. 44 It’s not 
for dukkerin’ you, but for the lil.” she repeated, and 
again she gazed at the girl’s hands and face. 

44 There’s one adder you never seen yet. It’s a 


ALLWARD 


woman. She’s hidin’. It’s a gauji woman. You re- 
member that, my darling, and step out of her path. 
You’se barn to be rich and lucky, a raunie you’ll be, 
my darlin’, with diments on your fingers. You’ll step 
into dead folks’ shoes, my dearie, see if you don’t and 
they’ll carry you over many a drum (road). There’s some 
trouble afore you, but if you listens to me and carries 
about the lil I’ll make you, you can come through it all, 
and have a smilin’ face at the end. You’ll never be con- 
tent with the crabtree while the orchard’s afore you. 
Don’t you go pickin’ the crabs, my darling. Yes, there’s 
trouble black afore you, but I think your luck’ll carry 
you through.” 

Her eyes clouded over, as if with a mist, and she 
began some of her gibberish again. Mary began to 
draw her hands away again, but they were clutched 
tight. 

“Do you see me through the trouble, Charlotte?” 
she asked. 

The fingers round hers relaxed, and Charlotte’s eyes 
became bright again. 

“ You shouldn’t have spoke,” she said. “I was just 
goin’ to see somethin’ for you. Now it’s gone. I can’t 
tell you what the end of it’ll be, but I’ll do my best for 
you. I’ll bring you the lil to-morrow.” 

“ Don’t you let aunt see,” said Mary. 

“ Kekker, chai. Do you think the old chovihaun’s 
a dinn ? I don’t know if you’ll see me either. There’s 

ways ” Her light blue eyes gleamed mysteriously. 

Then she asked abruptly — - 

“ You goin’ up country this year? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Mary. 

“ You’ll stay with that rye of yourn, perhaps.” 

Mary flushed. “ I don’t know,” she said. 

“ Don’t you fear, my darling, I’m not goin’ to open 


204 


ALLWARD 


my mouth. There was a rye after me once. Crazy 
for me, he was. Gold and diments he flung at me, and 
never onst got a choomer.” 

Mary gazed at her. There were tales of a tragedy 
in Charlotte’s early life. Her escapades and sinister 
reputation had all come after the untimely death of 
her first husband, to whom she had been faithful; her 
only legitimate spouse, as gossip had it. 

But Elsie was heard approaching through the bushes, 
and Mary leapt up. She did not want it known that 
she had visited Charlotte Cooper, and she knew that she 
could rely on the witch’s silence. She disappeared 
round the bushes before the child’s broad, freckled face 
was in sight. 


CHAPTER XVI 


Lyddon came back to the tent the next day, which was 
the day upon which Mary had paid her visit to Charlotte 
Cooper, to hear the sound of singing. He guessed it 
to be Mary’s voice, though she was always shy of letting 
him hear her sing. It was a sweet voice, a little husky 
like her speaking voice, and the tune she sang to was 
minor. He came near, moving carefully. He had 
missed the earlier verses evidently, for this was what 
she was singing — 

“ When she reached by his bedside, 

She said, ‘ Young man, you’re dyin’,’ 

And when she reached by his bedside, 

She said, ‘ Young man, you’re dyin’.’ 

4 You look all at my feet, 

You see a basin standin’ 

With one clear pint of my own heart’s blood 
W T hich I shed for you, Barbara Helen, 

With one clear pint of my own heart’s blood 
Which I shed for you, Barbara Helen. 

* 

And you look all at my head, 

You’ll see a watch a-hangin’, 

It’s a silver watch with a golden chain, 

It’s for you, dear Barbara Helen. 

It’s a silver watch with a golden chain, 

It’s for you, dear Barbara Helen.’ 

The more she looked, the more she laughed, 

The further she drawed from him, 

And all the people cried, ‘ For shame, 

Hard-hearted Barbara Helen, Helen,’ 

And all the people cried, * For shame, 

Hard-hearted Barbara Helen.’ 

205 


ALLWARD 


206 

As I was goin’ across the fields, 

The bells struck out a-tollin’, 

And all the tune they seemed to say, 

‘ Hard-hearted Barbara Helen, Helen.’ 

And all the tune they seemed to say, 

‘Hard-hearted Barbara Helen.’ 

She hadn’t got a mile or two 
She saw the corpse a-comin’. 

‘ You put him down, my four young men, 

That I may gaze upon him. 

You put him down, my four young men, 

That I may gaze upon him. 

You go home and make my bed, 

And make it long and narrow, 

My true love died for me to-day, 

I’ll die for him to-morrow. 

My true love died for me to-day, 

I’ll die for him to-morrow.’ ” 

He came to the entrance of the tent, and saw the 
reason of her singing. In her arms she held a black- 
haired baby, who stirred and half opened sleepy eyes at 
her sudden movement when she saw Lyddon. 

“Ssh!” went her lips, in warning to Lyddon, and 
she rocked gently backwards and forwards as she sat 
on the ground until the infant was fast asleep. Then 
she laid him down on Lyddon’s bed, and threw some 
sausages into the pan. 

He entered in some embarrassment. It was the first 
time that she had come into his tent since the day of the 
hollies. 

“ It’s awright,” said Mary. “ He’s off now, and when 
he’s off he’d sleep through anythink.” 

“ Whose baby is it? ” 

“ Prissy’s. She’ve got a place in her breast, and 
the doctor have told her she’s to wean him. I just 
given him his bottle — there it is!” She jerked over 
her shoulder, as she was holding the frying-pan in 
one hand and a fork in the other. “ I promised Prissy 


ALLWARD 


207 


I’d look after him while she was out. I bringed him 
here, so’s I could do jour supper.” 

Her tone was so cool and matter-of-fact that it 
forbade any tenderness. 

44 I thought you weren’t ever coming again,” he 
said. 

44 Well, you thought stupid.” 

He was puzzled at her deliberate roughness. Was 
it to counterbalance her coming to the tent, the in- 
stinctive withdrawal which follows an advance with a 
woman ? 

He put his hand in his pocket. 

44 I am glad you came,” said he. 44 Because, unless 
you had laid a patrin outside here, I shouldn’t have 
been able to see you alone to-night. I had a parcel 
from London to-day.” 

He took out a small packet. 

44 I sent to my bankers for this.” 

She looked at it curiously, and turned the sausages 
over with the fork. 

44 1 am not going to give it to you till after supper.” 

44 1 can’t bide for supper. I got to get the baby 
back.” 

He made no rejoinder, but sat fingering the packet 
and looking into the fire. She was child enough to let 
her curiosity overcome her, mingled with a little shame 
for having treated him so cavalierly. 

44 What is it, Adam ? ” 

44 When the sausages are finished you can come and 
see.” 

44 They’se brown enough now.” 

She forked them on to a dish and set it down beside 
her. 

He pushed them aside. 

44 That’s where I want you to sit.” 


208 


ALLWARD 


She surrendered impulsively, and, seating herself 
beside him, flung her arms round his neck. 

44 Oh, my dear ! Oh, my mush ! I do love you. I 
koms you, I koms you. I don’t think of nuthink else 
all the dear blessed day but you. It’s made a fool of 
me.” 

Again the dizzying moment, again the madness of 
meeting lips and cheeks laid against each other, again the 
wild foolishness of lovers’ talk. 

At last, partially sobered, she withdrew herself. 
44 What’s the little parcel, Adam? ” 

44 Something for you, my dearest.” 

She opened it with fingers which still trembled with 
happy emotion. Within was a little wooden box, and 
within that, again, a small leather case. She opened 
it. Within were two rings. One flashed and glittered 
like dew on an August morning, and she pounced on 
that first. 

44 A fawnie ! Oh, Adam, ain’t it pretty ! My dear 
Lord, how it do shine I They’re not real ones, the tatcho 
bars ? ” 

Her tone was almost awed. 

44 Yes, they’re real diamonds. It was my mother’s 
ring, and her mother’s before her. I want you to wear 
it and keep it.” 

Her arms were about his neck again, half laughing 
and crying. 44 Oh, Adam ! Oh, you blessed dinnlo 
mush! Oh, my dear! You mustn’t be givin’ me your 
lady mother’s ring.” 

44 There’s no one in the world I want to wear it 
more.” 

44 And what would the folks say when they saw a 
traveller girl like me with diments on her finger? The 
gavmushes would be wantin’ to lei me.” She turned 
and slipped it on her brown hand, turning it this way 


ALLWARD 


209 


and that, so that the stones glittered and sparkled. It 
did look incongruous on her brown hand beside the silver 
rings, and yet he liked to see it there. 

“ It do look lovely,” she sighed, enamoured of it. 

“ Then keep it, darling.” 

“ I can’t.” 

“ Because I ask you. Just to wear the finger smooth 
for this one.” He took her hand and transferred the 
ring to her left hand, and then laid the other ring on 
her palm. 

It was of plain gold. 

“ It’s a marriage ring,” said Mary huskily. 

“ It is to Tvear beside this when we are married.” 

“ I’ve told you that marry you I won’t.” 

“ But you are going to, all the same. Even if I have 
to carry you to church by force, the same as Prissy was 
taken to her man’s tent.” 

Her eyes were veiled behind the lids for the moment, 
and she flushed. The idea of force appealed to some- 
thing that was primitive in her. 

But he made the mistake of pleading again. 

“ Mary, you will? ” 

“ I can’t.” 

“ Then you are afraid that you won’t care for me 
always.” 

“ You know it isn’t that,” she said passionately. 66 1 
shall never think of nobody but you.” 

“ Then you shall marry me if you want to or not.” 

This was better. The temptation was stronger than 
she could bear. 

She sat still, looking idly at her hands. 

“ When, when ? ” he said, gripping them. 

A big tear splashed down on his hand, and then she 
looked up at him with smiling, swimming eyes. 

66 You does what you likes with me, Adam.” 


210 


ALLWARD 


44 I mean to, you gypsy thief.” 

44 Who’re you calling names?” she said, with April 
laughter. 

44 Who but you, my wife to be, you Romany witch, 
you wild rabbit ? ” 

44 That’s the first time I ever yeerd a man call his girl 
a shushy by way of a love-name,” said she, leaning 
against him. 44 You’ll be killin’ and eatin’ me next.” 

44 I have snared you.” 

44 That you have, Adam. No more jumpin’ in the fuzz- 
bushes for this yer brown rabbit.” 

He had a sudden unreasonable remembrance of the 
rabbit he had once seen in her hand, and of the blood- 
stains she had wiped away with her apron. 

44 There’s something you haven’t answered,” he said. 
44 How soon shall we get married? I can get a special 
license, if you like, to-morrow.” 

44 No, no. That’s too awful quick. Not yet, Adam.” 

44 1 want to bind you down to something.” 

44 My word is bond enough.” 

44 You give it? ” 

44 On my daddy’s hand. That’s oath enough.” 

44 Will you tell your aunt? ” 

She reflected a moment. 

44 Where’s the need to tell anybody ? ” 

44 Because I want to see you without fear of anybody 
finding anything to talk about.” 

44 They’s always talk, never fear. Where’s the need 
to be so public? That’s the way with you, a dibli wast 
at every drum.” 

44 What’s that? ” 

44 A sign-post at every road, my gaujo rye.” 

44 No, only at the cross-roads. And this is where our 
roads meet. The sign-post has got to go up.” 

44 ’Tis my daddy as you’ll have to ask. Wait a bit, 


ALLWARD 


211 


Adam. Lie’s cornin’ soon, and we’re goin’ to camp up 
at Verely. Now I must go, or Priss’ll think I’ve mored 
her baby.” 

She turned over the diamond ring. 

66 I can’t wear this, Adam. Yes, I knows what I 
can do.” She unbuttoned her bodice slightly, put in 
her hand and drew out a small packet, fastened round 
her throat by a piece of red ribbon. 44 I’ll tie it up with 
this.” 

44 What is it? ” 

She flushed. 44 Nothin’.” 

44 Show it to me, then, if it’s nothing.” 

44 1 can’t.” 

44 Why not, Mary? ” 

44 I’d not like you to see it.” 

He was insistent, laid hands on it, and kissed the 
bare throat she had exposed. 

44 You’ll laugh at mandy.” 

44 Kekker, my darling,” he swore in the Romany nega- 
tive. 

44 It’s a bit of a lil,” she said shamefacedly, putting 
it into his hands. 

He spread open a piece of paper pricked with a pin 
into various designs. There were arrows, symmetrical 
figures, lines of prickings which seemed without design. 

44 What is it? ” 

44 A paper.” 

44 It doesn’t take much to see that.” 

44 ’Tis to charm the adders away and bring me good 
luck,” she said reluctantly. 

44 Who gave it to you ? ” 

44 The person what made it.” She wrapped up the 
ring carefully in the paper, tied it up, and placed 
the red ribbon about her neck again, refastening her 
bodice. 


ALLWARD 


212 


“ And will that ward off ill luck ? ” 

“ If you wears it next your heart,” she said. “ I 
don’t know as I believes all that rubbish. But if there’s 
somethink in it, there’s no harm in wearin’ a bit of a lil, 
now is there? ” 

“ Then my ring is next your heart, too ? ” 

“ And you’re inside it,” she said. “ Right inside of 
it you are, and fillin’ it right up.” 

Her eyes shone with love at him and her mouth was 
tender. In another minute she and the baby, which 
was slung in a shawl, had disappeared. 

He stood still a moment, as if she were still gathered 
close to him, and the smoky, wood-sweet smell of her in 
his nostrils. Then he turned in and almost trod upon 
a plate of cold and forgotten sausages. 

“ Good Lord ! ” said he, sighing deeply. 

And he ate them with a hearty appetite. 


CHAPTER XVII 


Eleanor Hinton was deposited at Cloudy Gate early 
on the appointed Sunday afternoon. She left her aunt 
in the motor, which proceeded on its way to Brocken- 
hurst, and pushing open the little gate, went up between 
high hedges of box to the porch of the house, which 
faced a square lawn surrounded by flower-beds. Rain 
had fallen at intervals all day, but now transitory sun- 
shine was drawing all the sweetness from the wet earth. 
A big tree of red may beside the house sent out its fresh, 
suggestive perfume. A thrush, which fled from it at 
Eleanor’s approach, turned to hop on the gravel path 
and inspect her with bright, hard eyes, as she waited 
for the maid to answer the door. Evidently this was a 
house where birds had nothing to fear. 

The door opened, the elderly maid smiled down at 
her. 

44 Will you come in, miss P Miss Price is down by the 
van. I’ll tell her you’ve come.” 

44 And how are you, Broomfield? No more lumbago, 
I hope ? ” 

Eleanor had the gift of pleasantness which endeared 
her to her friends’ servants. She always appeared to 
have an interest in their health and well-being which, 
if not wholly sincere, sprang out of a genuine desire to 
please. 

64 No, thank-you, miss. I hope you are quite well.” 

Eleanor followed the maid into the drawing-room. 

44 Miss Price will be here directly,” said Broomfield, 
shutting the door. 


213 


ALLWARD 


214 

Eleanor went to the looking-glass over the mantel- 
piece and gently rubbed her cheeks with a piece of 
chamois leather. She prided herself on not using arti- 
ficial aids to her natural good looks, indeed her skin 
needed none, though, as is the way with fine skins, little 
lines were beginning to show about the corners of her 
mouth and about her eyes. Since early girlhood she had 
had some grey hairs, scarcely distinguishable among her 
light-brown hair, almost golden but for its lack of lustre. 
Good features, attractive, intelligent and sympathetic 
grey eyes, whose lashes were a little too light; a well- 
shaped mouth set in sensitive lines, such was the reflec- 
tion she saw in the glass. Not quite young, but so soft 
and small-boned, that she was not old enough to lose — in 
England — the appellation of 44 girl.” A little too thin, 
perhaps, for beauty, in spite of her good carriage, yet 
the impression she gave most people was one of appeal- 
ing, almost childish, prettiness. 

Miss Price, the inevitable rush-hat on her untidy hair, 
came in, followed by a large, grey, half-breed Persian 
cat. 

44 So sorry to keep you waiting, my dear ; I was 
taking a nap in the van in the field after lunch and 
over-slept myself. It was the sermon this morning. 
I do think that parsons should restrict, themselves to 
ten minutes. An alarm-clock in the pulpit would do 
it. I’m so glad you’ve come in good time, we shall be 
able to have a little talk to ourselves. You know I’ve 
to go out and leave my carpenter to your tender mer- 
cies at tea-time. How nice you look in that shady hat 
and pretty dress ! But you always look as if you were 
going to sit to Lavery, or one of these people. Come 
upstairs and take off your things.” 

44 1 think I’ll keep my hat on, thank-you. You dear 
thing, it is nice to see you.” 


ALLWARD 215 

“ Yes, the hat is too becoming to take off. I know. 
You mean to upset the peace of my carpenter.” 

44 And who ” 

44 Oh, my dear, whom are you coming to meet? ” 

44 Richard Lyddon.” 

44 Well, and he’s been working here by the day — saw- 
ing and planking at my new coach-house. You knew 
that, didn’t you? ” 

44 No. I haven’t seen him yet, you know.” 

44 He’s living like a tramp down here. Took me in. 
I thought he was a broken-down gentleman. Great, 
healthy, red-haired creature, too. Shy ! Queer ! Gave 
himself out as an artist.” 

44 Richard is a dear.” 

44 I quite like him.” 

44 Then he must like you. He’s dreadfully unsociable 
with people he doesn’t care about. He sticks out all 
over like a porcupine.” 

44 He has been fairly porcupiny with me sometimes. 
I am so inquisitive. But there is something about him, 
something very simple and sincere, that one can’t help 
liking.” 

44 Yes,” said Eleanor, and there was something pos- 
sessive in the way she lapped up praise of her friend. 

44 Do you know what our nickname for him was in 
the old days? The Wandering Jew. He used to be 
lost periodically — lost to the world, I mean, not lost 
himself. I believe he could make a map from memory 
of most of the western counties, he told me he could, 
once. He knows Dartmoor and Exmoor better than 
the people who’ve lived there for generations ; exactly 
where the bogs are, all the foot-paths and the rights 
of way through private property all round about. He 
is extraordinary, in these days of indoor men, the 
miserable creatures.” 


216 


ALLWARD 


“ And women.” 

“ It’s natural for women to be indoor. I am not, 
though.” 

“ I know you say so. But you live in London — by 
choice. You’re one of the people who only like the 
country under town conditions.” 

“ Oh, Miss Price ! How can you 1 Why, you know 
I spent the whole of last summer on Poole Harbour, 
and slept under canvas, and did my own cooking, and 
walked for miles.” 

“ Yes, my dear, but you wore sandals and had silk 
cushions in your tent.” 

“ You darling, silly thing, why shouldn’t one be com- 
fortable when one is camping? ” 

“And there were too many intense young creatures 
walking about with one garment on them and their 
hair down in that camp to please me,” said Miss Price. 
“ And a young man who promenaded the place in bath- 
ing-costume and spouted poetry and flirted with all 
those girls.” 

“ Oh, Guy! No one takes him seriously. But it 
was glorious ! I swam out every morning for about 
two miles and back, and got brown as a gypsy. And 
you talk as if Mr. Rochester had been the only man — 
there were three others.” 

“ Not such poseurs, I hope.” 

“ Far too busy. One was an artist, another 
went fishing all day, and the third was Molly 
Reynolds’ brother, a gunner, you know, a very nice 
boy.” 

“ It sounds artificial, the whole thing.” 

“ You are perverse,” said Eleanor. “ I was dread- 
fully unhappy, and that time on Poole Harbour pulled 
me together. Don’t let’s talk of it.” 

“ We’ll talk of Mr. Lyddon,” said Miss Price. 


ALLWARD 217 

“ What I don’t understand in him is where the scientist 
comes in.” 

“ He is a living paradox,” said Eleanor. 64 Part of 
him is intensely modern — inquiring, inventive, practical. 
The other half is retrogressive, shy, unpractical.” 

“How do you reconcile the two? Is it a case of 
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? ” 

44 1 think when he is working he becomes absorbed 
by work, but that its actual results and its commercial 
significance embarrass him. Then he is good-natured 
and lets himself be drawn into situations which after- 
wards fetter and irritate him. On the other hand, he 
can be excessively perverse.” 

44 1 believe you mean to marry him,” said Miss Price. 

44 I should like to,” said Eleanor frankly. 

She flushed a little as she spoke, and gazed with a 
certain challenge into the elder woman’s eyes. 

44 Well, he is free now,” said Miss Price dryly. 

44 Tell me,” said Eleanor, putting her hand on her 
friend. 44 You didn’t believe that there was anything 
in — in what Marjorie said about us? ” 

44 My dear, it is difficult to say whether one believes 
a thing or not, nowadays. So many nice women do 
incredible things, so many incredible women do nice 
things. In my old age I simply accept things.” 

44 Then you did believe it ? ” 

44 1 didn’t think it improbable. Platonic friend- 
ship ” 

44 It wasn’t with me,” said Eleanor, keeping her eyes 
down, 44 I am not going to pretend that it was. But 
he never thought that — I mean that he hadn’t the least 
idea. Marjorie had. She saw. But he blundered on, 
just thinking we were nothing more than friends.” She 
lifted her eyes again and gave a little laugh, though her 
lips were set. 44 Men are so blind.” 


218 


ALLWARD 


“ Poor Eleanor ! ” said Miss Price sardonically. 

“ I was foolish. I wanted to make him care, some- 
how, to show if there weren’t some spark. It wasn’t 
as if he cared for Marjorie. They were as far apart 
as the poles. I started a silly love affair to make him 

jealous partly, and to Oh, I don’t know, when 

one is hopelessly in love with one man one often tries 
to fall in love with some one else. I made him my con- 
fidant — Richard, I mean. Then Marjorie found a 
letter I’d written to the other man — and kept it. She 
thought it was for Richard. That was the letter which 
nearly came up in the trial.” 

“ Oh,” said Miss Price. She looked at Eleanor. 
“ My dear, you are telling me all this in order to make 
me into an ally — to tie my hands if I weren’t.” 

“ I have never told any one but you.” 

“I should like to ask you one thing? Do you think 
that it is possible that Richard Lyddon cared for you, 
but was too honourable to show it ? ” 

“ He has always cared for me as a friend, and 
once ” 

“ You were engaged to each other once.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you were responsible for breaking it 
off? ” 

“ How could we marry ? We hadn’t a penny piece 
between us.” 

“ Eleanor, you are a dangerous little creature, and 
I disapprove of you, but I’ve an affection for you. 
Be honest with me. You are really in love with your big, 
queer man? ” 

“ Yes,” said Eleanor Hinton, with simplicity which 
was deliberate. “ I am going to be frank with you. 
If I don’t marry now, and marry a man I am really 
fond of, I shall get degenerate and nervy and towny 


ALLWARD 


219 


and all the things I see other women becoming. I 
can’t marry for the sake of marrying, because I am 
fastidious. I care for Richard as I care for no one 
else.” 

“ If he had been in love with you, or shown it while 
his wife was still alive, as you wanted him,” said Miss 
Price grimly, “ what would you have done? ” 

“Done? Why, nothing.” 

“ And you would have lived on the satisfaction that 
he was as unhappy as yourself, I suppose.” 

“ You think me selfish.” 

“ My dear, I always have. You are feline. You like 
comfort and you won’t risk your neck. Still, you are 
lovable, like my Shah here, and you are just as clever 
at getting what you want as he is.” 

The grey cat responded to her lean, brown, caressing 
hand with a powerful purr. 

“ Don’t think me unkind,” said Miss Price. “ I 
think I shall help you. In fact I have begun already. 
I don’t think you good enough for my carpenter, but I 
think that he’ll be the salvation of you. And you have 
a good deal in you that makes you the woman for him. 
I hope you’ll have seven children at least.” 

“ I don’t think,” said Eleanor, “ that I’d care for 
more than two at most.” 

“Your nicest trait,” said Miss Price, “is that you 
can throw pose aside when you want to. There’s a soul 
to save in you, my dear.” 

“ I’m glad you think so,” said Eleanor. “ Tell me, 
at what time is he coming? ” 

“ He’ll be here in five minutes. I am going up to 
change and go off to the Parsonage. I shall not wait 
for Mr. Lyddon. Be kind to him and make my 
excuses.” 

She shook hands with Eleanor — Miss Price disliked 


220 


ALLWARD 


kissing, and left her. She was not to escape Lyddon, 
however, she met him at the foot of the stairs. 

44 Are you off? ” he said disappointedly. 

44 1 told you I was going to tea.” 

44 Yes, but I hoped you would have put it off.” 

44 My dear man, this anxiety to have me is flatter- 
ing. But you and Eleanor have reached such an un- 
romantic stage of friendship that chaperones can be 
dispensed with. She’s in there, waiting to scold you.” 

Miss Price went upstairs. 

44 1 wonder if Eleanor will succeed? I think she 
will.” She felt a certain gleeful and malicious pleasure 
in thinking of Lyddon as the unsuspecting quarry and 
Eleanor as the crafty Diana. She felt the more pleas- 
ure, being uneasy about certain rumors in the village 
concerning Lyddon and Mary. She had strong opin- 
ions on the subject of misalliances, and liked both the 
gypsy and her eccentric protege too much to see them 
involved in the net. Eleanor was the natural solution. 
She was intelligent, sympathetic, appreciative and 
attractive in the appealing way that most men liked. 
She looked delicate in spite of an excellent constitution, 
and seeming fragility should appeal to Lyddon’s virility. 
She had poetry enough in her composition to understand 
Lyddon’s passion for Nature; in fact, to a certain meas- 
ure he shared it. There was no reason why it should not 
be the most suitable of marriages, if Lyddon were a 
marrying man. 

Eleanor was amazed at the change of appearance 
in the big man who stood somewhat awkwardly within 
the door. Lyddon had put on a respectable suit for the 
occasion, but his face was browner, fuller and subtly 
changed. The harassed look, the look of a man who 
is fretted and strained, had left him. 

44 How are you, Eleanor ? ” 


ALLWARD 


221 


44 Too surprised at. you to speak. What have you 
done to yourself? You look so young.” 

“Young, do I? I’ve been camping out, you know.” 

“ How like you — you mad old thing — to bolt out of 
London like that and begin to camp in the middle of 
winter. Where are you going to sit ? ” 

He dropped into a chair at the opposite side of the 
tea-table, relieved that their conversation had begun in 
a bantering tone. The elderly maid brought in tea. 

44 This feels awfully civilised,” he said, with a smile. 

44 Don’t you think it’s nice? I always love getting 
back to comfort and luxury after I’ve been camping.” 

44 I forgot that you ever did,” he replied. 44 I always 
think of you in drawing-rooms, looking pretty.” 

44 And we’ve talked of things which are not a bit 
indoor. Do you remember that walking tour you 
marked out for me on the map? You know perfectly 
well that I camp out every year.” 

44 In crowds — a sort of garden city and simple life 
business — I know,” he said. 

44 Don’t be ironical, Richard. You know I love the 
open air as much as you do.” 

44 Possibly,” he said. 

44 And what do you think of my Forest? Isn’t it 
beautiful?” She leant forward with a thrill in her 
voice. 44 I’ve always told you about it, haven’t I ?■ — 
and now you will love it as you love your west country. 
Oh, the larks as I came along ! And bog myrtle is begin- 
ning to come out ! I’ve thought of you so often here and 
wished I could persuade you to come.” 

Something in her enthusiasm jarred upon him as 
shallow. In London, when she had talked to him of 
the Forest in this possessive strain, he had felt drawn 
to her. It was so rare to find any one who talked 
to him of the things that lay deep at his heart. But 


ALLWARD 


222 

now, close to the reality, her praise of the Forest made 
him retreat within himself, irritatedly, as if she had pro- 
faned the subject, or, rather, exhibited a patronising 
attitude towards it. She was so conscious of her appre- 
ciation. He was almost certain how her next sentence 
would begin, and he was right. 

“ Have you read — — ” 

“ I haven’t read a single book about this part of the 
world.” 

“ Then I must lend you a perfectly fascinating book. 
It tells you all about the Forest rights, and the local 
superstitions, and a hundred things that one wants to 
know. I always remember how you interested me one 
night about rights of way.” 

His natural kindliness and politeness made him thank 
her, and assume that he would be interested in reading 
the book. But he felt inwardly as if she felt all her 
delicate manner and fragile personality were intruding, 
as if the discussion of the Forest would be in a subtle 
way a discussion of Mary. He had a shrinking from 
anything that would interfere with an esoteric knowl- 
edge which he was only gaining through every day of his 
new existence. Since he had known Mary, it seemed 
to him that his intimacy with the things which were 
her life was identical with his intimacy with her. The 
vast dumb personality of the forest was in an occult way 
associated with her personality, and into it he, too, was 
becoming gradually absorbed. Mary was not conscious 
of beauty, as Eleanor was, she was part of it. She was 
part of the moor, part of the interchange of sun and 
shadow beneath the beech trees, part of the wind and 
cloud. He began to understand something of the vague 
hostility which those who are of wild blood feel towards 
the civilised. 

To draw her away, he asked Eleanor about herself, 


ALLWARD 


223 


about her doings, about her relations. They both in- 
stinctively avoided any mention of his recent bereave- 
ment. Eleanor followed his lead gracefully aware of 
it, and always throwing out feelers for his sympathy. 
She felt that he eluded her, that he meant to elude her. 
He avoided the old intimacy into which she tried to 
draw him. 

44 Where are you camping? ” she asked him. 

44 In one of Miss Price’s fields at present. But I 
shift to-morrow.” 

44 Oh, let me see your camp ! ” she begged. 

44 It isn’t fit for you to see,” he said quickly. 44 It’s 
in an awful mess, at least ” 

44 You don’t suppose that I want to see anything but 
the place as you live in it,” she rejoined. 44 You should 
have seen my tent last year ! Do let us go there after 
tea.” 

He had again the feeling that he was being boorish 
and ungracious to her, and in a sudden mood of repent- 
ance agreed. 

44 It’s just an ordinary gypsy’s tent,” he said. 
44 Ridge pole and blankets and all. I got it from 
some gypsies here — they’d been using it themselves 
before.” 

44 How nice ! But weren’t you afraid of fleas and 
things, 4 little sisters of the poor,’ as we used to call 
them ? Then you have seen local gypsydom. This is a 
regular gypsy village ; you know I always talk to them 
for the sake of Borrow when I see them. These here 
aren’t pure-bred, and very squalid, but of course there 
is the tradition of greatness. Miss Price gets dreadfully 
annoyed with me if I say they are dirty — she had a 
gyP s y girl as housemaid once, did she ever tell you? 
and she says she was really clean. But then so many 
of the gypsies in this village are house-dwellers.” 


224 


ALLWARD 


Lyddon banged down his cup in a temper. Then he 
brought himself to reason with the thought that he 
himself might have spoken in the same way a little 
while ago. 

44 Look here, Eleanor,” he said, with a heat which 
charmed her, 44 you will make me angry with you if 
you talk of them as if they were foxes. They have been 
very good to me ” 

44 But, Richard, they are practically foxes. That is 
exactly what I love about them, dear things.” 

44 My dear little girl, you don’t love anything about 
them at all, and it is humbug to pretend you do. That’s 
my quarrel with people like yourself. It’s all derived 
from books. It’s second-hand. You look at other hu- 
man beings, and say 4 How picturesque ! how romantic ! 
how dirty ! ’ without the least idea that they are as 
real and as complex as yourself. Far more real, far 
more real! It is the Baedeker attitude towards life 
that I hate. It is an insult to live human creatures to 
say, 6 Dear things ! ’ ” 

Eleanor laughed with real enjoyment. At last she 
had jerked him into life. 

“Richard, it’s you at last, come back! You nice, 
delightful person ! ” 

44 I’m one of the 4 dear things ’ too, am I? ” he said, 
with grim humour. 

44 You are real enough, anyway. No, you are wrong, 
Dick — it isn’t that I don’t know they are real. Of 
course, they are. One speaks superficially, sometimes. 
Let me meet your gypsies — your friends. I shall like 
them. I know I shall like them. I shall be frightfully 
interested in them.” 

44 There’s nothing to interest you in them,” he said. 

44 You are disagreeable ! ” 

44 No, I am not. Be honest, and you know that talk- 


ALLWARD 


225 


ing to them could only be an exhibition of patronage on 
your part and of shyness on theirs.” 

“ Dick, you are not fair. You know I always get 
on well with people like that. Truly, I think their life 
is wonderful — to live close to Nature like that ! ” 

He smiled sardonically. 44 Don’t you remember what 
Dr. Johnson said to some one who gushed to him 
about the superior happiness of what they called the 
savage life? you would call it the simple life to-day, 
perhaps. He was far more candid than you are. 4 Sir, 
there can be nothing more false. The savages have no 
bodily advantages beyond those of civilised men. They 
have not better health ; and as to care or mental uneasi- 
ness, they are not above it, but below it, like bears. 
No, sir, you are not to talk such paradox; let me have 
no more on’t.’ ” 

44 What do you mean to prove by that? ” 

44 Johnson was right. If you talked to old Sam James 
about the gloriousness of living close to Nature, he’d 
stare. He lives close to Nature because he is Nature, 
because he is instinct embodied.” 

44 Well, you deny me instinct, then? ” 

44 No, but you and I have travelled so far from instinct 
that it is ridiculous for us to pretend to understand 
those who have never followed anything else. There’s 
only one thing can bridge over misunderstanding — — ” 
He paused abruptly. 

44 What’s that?” 

His heart prompted an answer that reserve held in 
check, and his lips said, 44 Great sympathy and intuition 
that comes of it.” 

t 

Mary sat in her tent on the hill below her aunt’s 
garden, planting young fern-roots into pots ready for 
sale in the town. She liked the work, and patted and 


226 


ALLWARD 


pressed the earth into the small pots which the ferns 
would soon outgrow, with deftness. The earth clung 
to her fingers — it smelt of the damp places in the woods, 
and the ferns themselves gave out a bitter, nutty odour 
which carried the mind into deep, shady places. The 
young fronds were curled tightly and covered with 
hairy down ; they were shaped like small, brown croziers 
— and like baby fingers too, Mary thought, as she un- 
curled one a little and felt its resistance, the youth and 
tender tenacity of it. From time to time she pushed 
back her hair, and her earth-stained hands left marks 
on her forehead. 

Her thoughts were with Lyddon. Not definitely, for 
she was partly thinking about her work ; but there was 
a sweet, warm consciousness of him which mingled with 
her other thoughts like a golden thread. Mary had 
borrowed something of Em’ly’s glowing beauty in these 
last days. It was as if a bloom, a richness of col- 
ouring, had been lent her by the happiness which filled 
her. Her blood moved more quickly, her senses were 
keener, she felt her physical life at its fullest. The in- 
tense vitality of which Lyddon was so aware in her, was 
increased. She could have laughed aloud with the mere 
joy of living and pride of body. Her twenty-mile walk 
left her untired; her wide, vivid smile and pretty colour- 
ing brought her better luck than she had ever had before 
in selling her flowers; people turned to look at her in 
the streets as they looked at Em’ly, and she had heard 
them say “ What a pretty gypsy ! ” or “ What a pretty 
flower-girl ! ” 

Yet she was not beautiful like Em’ly; it was her joy 
and youth that made her radiate attraction. 

As she pressed in the baby ferns, she sang to herself 
a little. And then, suddenly, she stopped. Some one 
was crying, quite close to her. 


ALLWARD 


m 

She put the ferns she had in her lap into the basket 
again, shook the earth out of her skirt, as she stood 
up, and listened. 

Yes, it was a girl or a woman crying. Mary walked 
a little way down the hill into the brick valley. To 
the right lay a cottage inhabited by half-breed hawker- 
people of the dirtiest and poorest sort. A girl there 
had just had her third baby. But it was not from the 
cottage that the weeping came. There was silence, 
probably young mother and child were both asleep, 
and the children playing up in the village or in the 
hollies. The crying came from a clump of gorse farther 
off in the brick valley. Mary walked towards it, and 
saw a torn, black skirt and two long, thin legs in muddy 
boots showing from beneath it. 

It was Milly Chilcut. Mary hesitated. The Chil- 
cuts were much despised by the better class of 44 travel- 
lers.” Mrs. Chilcut was a woman of disreputable char- 
acter, and it was said that all her daughters, one after 
the other, had gone to the bad, with their mother’s 
connivance. The latest scandal about them was that 
contrary to 44 traveller ” law, which forbids a young man 
to camp with a young woman of different family until she 
has been 44 given ” to him, a boy of fifteen, of a family 
superior to Milly’s, had been 44 ’ticed away ” by Mrs. 
Chilcut, and had joined the Chilcuts without his father’s 
consent. No one condemned Milly, who was the cause 
of the young man’s leaving his father’s tent, but Mrs. 
Chilcut was universally blamed. 

Mary began to turn away again. The Jameses con- 
sidered themselves of better family than either the 
Chilcuts or Milly’s lover, and kept free of all disputes 
or dealings with them. Then the girl’s sobs touched 
her heart, and she went over. 

Milly looked up with a tear-stained face. She 


228 ALLWARD 

was no more than fourteen, though she looked 
older. 

44 What’s the matter? ” said Mary. 

Milly only sobbed. 

44 Yer,” said Mary, with gentleness her words belied. 
44 Stop that noise. What is it ? Are you cryin’ about 
Teddy? ” 

Milly nodded her head. 

44 His father won’t have him,” she said, between her 
weeping. 44 He’ve a-tarned him out.” 

44 He tarned himself out,” said Mary. 44 What’ve 
he done in your tan, taggin’ after you all and bringin’ 
shame and talk on you ! Why didn’t you wait and get 
married proper? ” 

Milly sobbed. 

44 He went back to his father, and his father sent ’im 
off about his business,” she got out. 

44 Where is he now ? ” 

44 We was campin’ up at Beaulieu Rails, and he 
couldn’t find us. When he got yer, he was half starved. 
Hadn’t eat nothin’ for three days. Like a skelitin he 
was. Hadn’t no tent nor nothin’.” 

44 He’s no good,” said Mary impatiently. 44 There’s 
always sacks to be had for the askin’. He could make 
hisself a tent if he wanted.” 

44 He’ve a-made hisself one now with sacks and rags 
what he picked up,” said Milly, looking up with quick 
hostility. 

44 Well, what you’re cryin’ about, now ? ” 

44 1 wish he hadn’t a-come back,” said Milly, crying 
afresh. 

44 Well, why don’t you send him about his business ? ” 

44 Oh, I can’t!” 

44 Then git married.” 

As soon as she had given this advice Mary hesitated. 


ALLWARD 


229 


What would these two feckless children do if they mar- 
ried and began to beget other children? Where would 
their bread come from? 

“ What can Ted do? What can he make money at? ” 

“ 1 dunno,” said the girl, picking sullenly at the 
grass. 

“ Are you goin’ to have a baby? ” asked Mary sud- 
denly. 

“ No, I ain’t.” 

“ Well, why don’t you send Ted off and make him 
earn some money, and then marry him? ” said Mary. 

The girl said nothing. She seemed half-stupid from 
fear or grief, or indecision. 

44 I’d be ashamed to have folks talkin’ as they do about 
you and your mother ’ticin’ Ted off like that.” 

Milly had a sudden blaze of anger. 

44 You can’t talk, Mary James. Folks is sayin’ things 
’bout you and your fine Gorgo up in the bushes.” 

Mary flushed. 

44 What things is they a-sayin’? ” 

Milly said the unspeakable thing, and Mary flashed 
into fury. 

44 You say it again, Milly Chilcut! ” 

Milly repeated it and stood up, wild-eyed. 

Mary took a step forward. She scarcely knew what 
she intended to do, but before she had raised a hand 
or uttered a sound the half-savage child, for she was 
little more, had hit her in the face with a stick which 
she held in her hand. The switch caught Mary in 
the eye, and the pain and smart were so intense that 
she staggered back, unable to see. When she sprang 
forward to grapple with her assailant, she found that 
Milly had fled. Nevertheless, she made an attempt to 
chase her, though her vision was blurred with tears of 
pain. She saw, as she wiped them away on her apron, 


230 


ALLWARD 


that it was blood-stained. The twig had cut her eyelid. 
She soon desisted from her useless and angry pursuit. 
She had stumbled after Milly on to the high-road, but 
now sat on a stone near its dusty verge, hot-faced and 
panting, and vowing that she would give that Chilcut 
girl what-for when next she met her. She could scarcely 
open her injured eye, but after a while she had recovered 
sufficiently to get up and make her way towards Miss 
Price’s field. She would make up a fire in Lyddon’s 
tent against his return, which he had told her might 
be about, half-past six — supper-time. She forgot her 
smarting eye and angry feelings as she drew near the 
field in which his tent was pitched, smokeless, below 
a blackthorn hedge now in full leaf. Life held bigger, 
sweeter things for her, she could afford to put her desire 
for revenge in the background. Only an hour separated 
her from the man that was her world and her sole 
desire. She tightened her hands as if in a foretaste of 
happiness. 

44 When I’ve made his fire I’ll nip back and clean 
meself in a bucket of water,” she thought. She knew 
that her lover liked to see her tidy and neat, and was 
aware that her appearance at present did not fulfil that 
ideal. 

She was always making feverish inner notes of his 
approvals and disapprovals. He did not care to see 
dirty nails, for she had watched him with some sur- 
prise cleaning his own, though it was only earth which 
blackened them, and earth is, to a gypsy, 46 clean dirt,” 
and not defiling. Since then she had toiled at her 
own with a piece of stick. She noticed that he did not 
like to see her sister’s children with running noses, 
and wiped the baby’s whenever she was in charge, and 
saw that its face was free from any stain, however 
64 clean ” the dirt. She brushed her thick hair with 


ALLWARD 


231 


the broken old brush that was one of her treasures, 
and was repaid when he touched it and called it beautiful. 
She washed it too, and called out burnished browns, 
like autumn sunshine on fallen leaves, in its cloudy 
darkness. She wore her prettiest kerchief — she noticed 
that he preferred her in a “ diklo ” to a hat. Her 
beads and gauds he liked, or she would have sacrificed 
them. 

She sounded him with cunning as to any change which 
he desired in her. Clean of person, as most of the 
purer blood gypsies, she had always been, but now she 
strove after the niceties of the toilet. She even un- 
earthed a tooth-brush, which was a relic of the days 
when she had attended a board school, and brushed her 
even young teeth with it — before this access of coquetry 
she had only picked them after meals with a splinter 
when they needed it. But health and simple living 
will often keep the teeth white where the arts of civilisa- 
tion fail. Mary regarded the tooth-brush, as an un- 
necessary refinement, but an elegance which made her 
worthier of her gentleman lover. Her Granny James 
had not an unsound tooth in her head when she died, 
though they were yellowed with tobacco smoke, and 
she would not have known what to do with a tooth- 
brush. 

Mary picked up a little bundle of firewood from a 
hole in the hedge where she had hidden it beside the 
bridal blossom of wild carrot, still heavy with the morn- 
ing’s rain, which lined the water-filled ditch. Here, in 
the lee of the hedge, it was warm, and bees, hastening 
to fetch in their toll of honey and pollen after the 
rain, buzzed pleasantly in the field over the buttercups 
and young clover. The showers had given the spring 
growth fresh impulse. A may-bush gave out a riot of 
disquieting perfume. The girl rolled the bundle into 


232 


ALLWARD 


her dirty apron, jumped the ditch again, and then 
came to a surprised standstill, and looked about for a 
means of escape. Lyddon was approaching her on the 
path, and with him was a lady. 

But to evade them was impossible. They were di- 
rectly in the line of retreat. Nothing could have been 
more unfortunate. She remembered her dirty and 
blood-stained face, her earthy hands, her apron, her 
marks of conflict. Lyddon must not see her, above 
all he must not feel ashamed of her before a gauji lady. 
She crouched down into the ditch, and pretended to 
busy herself with tying up the wood in the hope that 
Lyddon would pass her by. But Eleanor was anxious 
to be gracious to any of the hawker people that she 
encountered; Mary’s dark hair, from which the yellow 
diklo had slipped, and the gleam of her swinging ear- 
rings caught her attention, and she delayed Lyddon, who 
would have passed on. 

44 Here is a friend of yours, I know ! ” she said. 44 You 
are a gypsy, I am sure ! ” 

44 I’m a traveller, my lady,” said Mary, reddening, 
her head kept down, her eyes anxiously turned towards 
Lyddon’s figure, half-arrested in the path, 

44 Dick, Dick ! come here and introduce me,” called 
Eleanor. 

44 Come and see the tent,” said lie, with a sub-note 
of anxiety and irritation, signing behind her back to 
Mary to go away. 

But Mary’s escape was blocked relentlessly by 
Eleanor, and Lyddon’s gesture angered her. Who was 
this fine raunie who called him by his first name, and 
was made welcome to his tent? 

44 Do you tell fortunes ? ” said Eleanor. 

44 No, m’lady,” said Mary in her hoarse, sweet voice. 

44 Oh, you do! You know you do. I’m not going to 


ALLWARD 


233 


tell on you. Dick, do make her come in your tent with 
us and read my hand.” 

“ She doesn’t tell fortunes,” said Lyddon impatiently 
over his shoulder. 44 Come along, Eleanor.” 

“ No, I’m not coming on. It’s no good getting an- 
noyed. I know you too well to mind if you are annoyed 
or not.” 

Mary lifted her head at last to throw a hasty glance 
at him, that was half resentment and half alarm. 

44 Oh, my dear child,” said Eleanor in genuine con- 
cern, 44 what have you done to your eye? ” She came 
close. 44 Oh, what a dreadful cut ! It might have 
blinded you.” 

She had her hand on Mary’s arm now, and Mary 
wriggled free sulkily. 

44 And you’ve rubbed earth into it! You silly girl, 
you might get tetanus or some dreadful disease by 
doing a thing like that. Promise me to go right home 
and wash it out at once. No, wait ! I’ll do it for you, 
here in Mr. Lyddon’s tent.” 

44 1 don’t want it washed, m’lady ! ” 

44 Leave the girl alone, Eleanor, and come along,” said 
Lyddon desperately, striding back. 

Mary’s resentment and suspicion suddenly flamed up 
against her lover. She drew herself straight, and looked 
at him. 

44 You leave me alone, my lady,” said she, with simu- 
lated humility, 44 like the gennleman yer tells you. You 
don’t want to touch us dirty travellers, look, with your 
nice, clean ’ands, do she, my gennleman ? ” 

Lyddon swore under his breath. Mary had misun- 
derstood him. 

44 Mary ! ” he said appealingly. 

She took no notice of him. 

44 I’ll goo and wash it myself,” she said, gazing down 


ALLWARD 


234 

at Eleanor. 44 It’s on’j a scratch I got fightin’. We 
travellers has a bit of a scrap now and agen betwixt 
ourselves.” 

44 What has happened? Who did that, Mary?” 
asked her lover, pushing himself before her, resolved 
that she should not think him willing to ignore her. 

He scarcely thought of what he said in his anxiety to 
correct her impression. 

44 A b b ,” said Mary deliberately, gazing 

past him at Eleanor, and made a wild dash for free- 
dom to the gate, conscious that she had petrified her 
hearers. 

44 What an ill-mannered specimen,” remarked Eleanor 
coolly, facing Lyddon. 

44 1 — I am engaged to be married to her,” he said. 

44 Oh ” said Eleanor, and for the moment she 

could find nothing else to say in the face of such a 
statement. 

Lyddon walked along beside her in angry silence. He 
was angry with himself, angry with Eleanor, angry 
with Mary. What in heaven’s name had induced Mary 
to come in such a state, at the precise moment when he 
would have shielded her from the critical presence of 
Eleanor? Why in the name of the powers had she, 
usually so gentle, chosen to behave like a wild cat? 
and why had he allowed the situation to develop? 
He was roused from his distressed meditation by 
Eleanor. 

44 1 am so sorry, Dick. You must be longing to wring 
my neck ! ” 

44 It is I who ought to apologise,” he said furiously. 

44 Only for stupidity, my dear man. Of course — ’’ 
she hesitated and then said, not without malice — 
44 your fiancee was hurt at your attitude. You should 
have introduced her at once, and not tried to hurry me 


ALLWARD 235 

past. It looked as though you were ashamed of her, 
and that was enough to make her angry.” 

He made no answer. 

They had reached the door of the tent, and she seated 
herself on a box at the entrance, and reaching up to him, 
laid her little hand on his sleeve impulsively. 

44 My dear Dick, we are old enough friends for you 
to have told me this at first. Did you think I shouldn’t 
understand? ” 

44 Yes,” he said, softening. 44 1 did.” 

44 Well, you are wrong,” she said. 44 I can under- 
stand, knowing you.” Then she added, after a pause, 
44 She is handsome. And very young.” 

Lyddon shrank from discussing Mary. He told him- 
self again and again that he had not been ashamed of 
her, that he could never be ashamed of her. Yet she, 
whose shyness and sweetness had charmed him, had 
shown herself for once as a virago, and that before a 
woman whose friendship had been so long part of his 
life that he valued it. 

44 Are you honestly fond of her? ” said Eleanor, with 
sudden directness. 44 Don’t be angry with me for ask- 
ing, Dick.” 

44 Of course, I am.” 

Eleanor thought for a moment. 

44 I should like to meet her again, under more favour- 
able circumstances,” she said. 44 1 shouldn’t like the 
girl you are to marry to hate me. You nearly brought 
that about.” 

44 You two will have nothing in common,” he said, with 
stiffness. 44 Mary is a wild creature ; she isn’t able to 
express herself, least of all to you. I’m not going to 
make the mistake of taking her out of her environ- 
ment.” 

She smiled, and indicated the smoky little tent. 


236 


ALLWARD 


66 This?” 

44 Perhaps.” 

44 Then you’re not going back to the Belloni people? ” 

44 I’ve dropped the commercial side of it for ever- 
more. If I work again, I shall work and experiment 
for myself.” 

44 And your career — are you without ambition? ” 

44 The kind of ambition you mean leads into captivity 
of mind and body.” 

44 And may not this new life of yours make you nar- 
row? And yet I don’t know. I always said you were 
not twentieth century. I suppose it was an instinct like 
yours that drove monks out of communities to caves on 
the mountain side — to throw everything overboard ; I’ve 
had it myself. But most of us are afraid to try, we 
are conscious that we should fail, that we shouldn’t be 
self-sufficient enough. Perhaps you will make a success 
of it, you cave-man ! ” 

He laughed, his good humour restored. 

44 It is no definite experiment,” he said shyly. / 4 Don’t 
think that. It is only a freedom to come and go as 
I like, to be independent of a society which means noth- 
ing to me, to have the right to wander up and down 
the earth as I please, and enough money to enable me 
to do it, to follow an instinct which has possessed me 
since I was a boy, which is to avoid the high-roads and 
follow the foot-paths, and be accountable to no one for 
my behaviour.” 

44 You are a Peter Pan in the tree-tops,” said she. 
44 You never grew up. Will you have any headquarters 
where one may expect to write to you sometimes ? ” 

44 A tramp’s headquarters,” he said, with a laugh, 
balancing a half-burnt stick on his finger. 44 Seriously, 
I expect I shall have a permanent camp somewhere. 
You see we may have children. And I shall do a 


ALLWARD 237 

little work, too, and for that we shall want to have 
a roof.” 

“ Then you are going to live for the things you care 
for most? ” she said wistfully. 64 Perhaps you are right, 
Dick. I feel often as if one needed a cataclysm to 
rid one’s being of the parasite needs and artificialities 
which cling on to one’s real self and choke it. To enjoy 
life as little children enjoy it, and young mothers enjoy 
it, and birds enjoy it — only Peter Pans can do that, if 
they are not either children or young mothers or birds. 
Civilised existence is so vulgar and noisy that one gets 
deafened to the under and over tones. Success in life 
means failure in the essentials which are so difficult to 
name.” 

He caught the note of sincerity in her voice, and for 
a moment saw an Eleanor who admitted defeat, an 
Eleanor who had for the moment dropped the pretence 
of being satisfied with what her life had to offer her. 
There were lines about her mouth, hardness in her eyes. 
A rush of sympathy for her made him say the thing 
which hurt most. 

44 You ought to marry, you ought to have children. 
You’ve just admitted that’s the way women get hold of 
the best there is.” 

• 44 Yes,” she said. 44 1 ought to have had children. 
So ought ever so many women that I know. Failing 
that, one can’t afford to see too much of Nature. One 
is afraid of her. She gives one such blunt reminders. 
She has a way of reminding one of the elan vital — do 
you know your Bergson? She throws spring-time and 
young birds and lambs in your teeth. So town life 
and all its distractions and occupations become a neces- 
sity to a lonely woman. I’ve a craving for clean air 
and wild places which I dare not satisfy. I sometimes 
think that women are afraid of Nature just because 


238 


ALLWARD 


Nature is imperative in them. If it weren’t for women, 
there would be no civilised life. Artificiality is their 
refuge.” 

66 What nonsense you’re talking,” said he positively. 

“You will marry. You are so ” he hesitated. 

44 You’re everything that most men like — pretty and 
clever and charming, and all that.” 

44 You are most encouraging,” she retorted. 44 But 
I don’t want 4 most men.’ That’s an obstacle, don’t 
you think? ” 

44 Why didn’t you marry Guy Rochester? ” 

44 Why didn’t I? I’ll tell you some day.” 

44 Y ou let me think — — ” 

44 Crudest of all crude Adams. I’ve told you. If I 
could have married him I would have. I did my best 
to persuade myself, I assure you. But I would far 
rather talk of your affairs than of my disappointed 
spinsterhood.” 

He reddened, and said nothing. Even to talk of 
Mary to Eleanor was in a subtle way a disloyalty to 
the gypsy. 

44 What would have happened if we had married 
years ago I ” she said inconsequently. 44 How curious 
fate is.” 

44 It would have been queer,” he said uncomfortably. 
He wished she would go. It was getting near the time 
at which he expected Mary. Eleanor always fascinated 
him while she was with him, but now his undercurrent of 
thought was for Mary. Would she come? Would she 
be sulking in the hollies, waiting for him to come and 
find her? Would she wait for him by the bog opposite 
the blackened ruin of the hillside? He felt an impa- 
tience to get away from Eleanor and the atmosphere 
of self-consciousness which clung to her like a scent to 
a silk gown. 


ALLWARD 239 

“What is her name? ” said Eleanor, rising, as if she 
divined his thought. 

“ Mary.” 

“ I like that, Dick. Will you see me back to Miss 
Price’s? The motor ought to be there soon, and I 
want to talk to her before I go. Don’t come into the 
house, go and find your pretty savage, and beg her 
pardon. I shall meet her and try to win her heart some 
day. Tell her I don’t mind being called bad names.” 

He bit his lip. 

“ She didn’t realise ” 

“ Don’t, Dick ! That polite manner means that you 
are angry again.” 

He was obliged to laugh at her air of misery. 

“ All square? ” she asked. 

“ All square,” he said. 

“ Good-bye. Best of luck to you both.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Eleanor had rightly surmised that Miss Price’s curios- 
ity would ensure her early return. 

44 Where’s your Richard? ” asked the old maid from 
her basket-chair by the window when her guest entered 
the room. 

Eleanor sat down on the sofa, and leant her two 
elbows on its cushioned end. 

“ Consoling his gypsy, I expect. You should have 
warned me.” 

44 Of what? ” 

44 About this girl.” 

44 He has assured me there is nothing in it. Tell me, 
what has happened?” 

44 Then you do know something of the girl? ” 

64 Of Mary James? You’ve heard that gossip? The 
girl washes up for him, that’s all.” 

44 1 had it from Richard himself.” 

44 What is 4 it ’? No, that noise was not your car ; I 
can see the road from the window. Be quick, Eleanor. 
What do you mean? ” 

44 He is engaged to be married to the young woman 
in question. I met her, and had an unpleasant little 
scene with her, and then he told me. She used some 
cabby swear-words to me.” 

44 Eleanor! You must be dreaming!” said Miss 
Price sharply. 44 I tackled him about Mary myself, 
and he assured me there was nothing in the talk. And 
Mary James ! Such a nice girl — when kept in her place. 
I can’t believe that Mary swore at you. My gypsy 
240 


ALLWARD 


241 


girls always speak so respectfully. It is bewildering. 
I can’t understand it.” 

Eleanor gave a laugh. 

“ That’s because you haven’t considered the prob- 
abilities. Propinquity, spring, a nice-looking girl — and 
you know Richard’s sensitiveness and kindness.” 

Miss Price stiffened and quivered. “Oh, Eleanor! 
Oh, my dear, you don’t imply that he’s got the girl 
into trouble, and that ” 

“ No,” said Eleanor quickly, brushing the suggestion 
aside. “ Not that, I hope. It may be. But in any 
case I can’t pretend to be pleased at such a marriage. 
Whatever Richard might have been to me doesn’t mat- 
ter now. But I shall miss him, as a friend. We shall 
never be friends again. I don’t mean that I should be 
snobbish about his wife — good Lord, no! — but he’ll 
be terribly on the defensive about her and see snob- 
bishness where none exists. You know how it is with 
such marriages. And she — she’ll hate me, naturally, 
knowing that there has been something more than 
friendship between her husband and me, years ago. 
And then the pity of it ! He has no ambition. 
Fool as Marjorie was, and tactlessly as she set about it, 
he would have had no position but for her. He wants 
a wife who will spur him on without letting him feel the 
rowel, who will see that he doesn’t altogether neglect his 
worldly interests. I know him so well; I know just 
where Marjorie failed and irritated him; I should never 
make the mistake of dragging him into society, as she 
did. Richard wants such management. There was no 
sympathy between them . . . and now, while he is still 
a young man, he will ruin himself for ever and just 
sink into a nobody — an eccentric nobody at that.” 

66 I wonder if you do understand him so well as you 
think ? ” said Miss Price, in one of her bursts of unpleas- 


242 


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ant shrewdness and candour. 44 There is a mystic 
hidden in that man, you know.” 

“ Of course I know he is a genius,” said Eleanor. 
44 But a genius who has no one to explain and label him 
gets put in the wrong glass case. Yes, I’m materialistic, 
I’m utilitarian, I’m vulgar ! But it’s for Richard. He 
will degenerate if he marries a girl like that. If you 
had seen her ! So untidy, so filthy ! Men are so un- 
fastidious. I could never bear a man near me with a 
soiled collar, far less kiss him. I assure you her whole 
appearance was dirty, really dirty. But men aren’t 
made selective like women. It is a fact one has to face.” 

44 She isn’t dirty as a rule,” said Miss Price, with 
mild asperity. 44 Eleanor, my dear, don’t trouble your- 
self about it. There must be a mistake. I shall see 
Mary James and her aunt and have it out with them. 
The marriage is impossible, and it’s not to be thought 
of. It would be a great, mistake, and a pity for Mary as 
well as Mr. Lyddon.” 

44 Forget our conversation of this afternoon,” said 
Eleanor, fidgeting with the cord of the cushion. 

44 There is no need to forget it,” replied Miss Price, 
with spirit. 44 I tell you the marriage is absurd, and I 
shall stop it. But don’t you make a mistake about 
Lyddon either, and badger him into being what he isn’t, 
even though you succeed in persuading him he wants 
to be, and you are clever enough to do that. Here’s 
a piece of worldly wisdom that I’ve picked up: if a 
woman attracts a man through what he wants to be 
but isn’t, she has no lasting hold on him. If she attracts 
him through what he can’t help being, her hold is as 
strong as death. Upon my word, Eleanor, if I were 
Mr. Lyddon I’d steer clear of women altogether; but 
in England you can no more do that than a man can 
keep off locusts when he’s walking through a plague 


ALLWARD 


243 


of them. They settle on him, blunder into him, and in- 
sist on getting into his way. I wouldn’t be a man in 
this woman-ridden country for more than a thousand 
pounds. In Mary’s class the proportion is better ; 
there’s a man to every woman and a woman to every 
man, so there’s no man-chasing. Thank goodness, I’m 
contented with my spinsterhood.” 

44 I’m not hunting the sex,” said Eleanor, stung as 
her friend had intended. 44 1 am too horribly selective.” 

44 That’s obstinacy,” said Miss Price. 44 Here’s the 
motor, and your aunt is coming up the path. You must 
get your hat on.” 

Eleanor got up and, coming to her, kissed her battered 
cheek. 

44 Don’t think me horrible,” she said. 44 1 want to 
be nice to the gypsy if I can. I shall come one day 
and see her, and try to make her like me. I dare say 
she may conceal untold fascinations beneath the soil of 
honest toil, as a labour leader would put it. I must 
get used to the idea of doing without Dick. The hard 
part will be that Aunt Helen and everybody else is 
expecting an announcement of our engagement. That’s 
the only pleasant feature of the situation. It is always 
a satisfaction to disappoint popular expectation.” 

Mary’s first mood of resentment and anger rapidly 
changed into one of profound misery. She walked 
rapidly along the high-road towards Burley, meeting 
many of the villagers in their Sunday clothes who 
looked askance at the unkempt gypsy girl. She soon 
left the last house behind her, and, turning off on to 
the heather, stood looking over the wild heath that lay 
between her and Burley, bosomed in distant trees. The 
long pond in the valley gleamed and mirrored the great 
cumuli, heavy with unfallen rain. The clearness which 


ALLWARD 


£44 

spoke of rain near at hand brought Burley Beacon 
nearer by two miles. The heather, still wet from the 
morning’s heavy showers, was dark green-brown at her 
feet, becoming purple on the further slopes. The brown 
bracken was plum-coloured in the distance. The colours 
were rich and vivid. Near her there was the steady 
sound of cropping — a pony, its shaggy hide red as fire 
in the transitory sunlight, was busily feeding. A peaty 
bracken and heather-sweet smell rose to her out of the 
valley, as it were, the very soul of the heath and bog. 
It brought her vague comfort. She hated the Sunday- 
attired folk who had passed her on the high-road, she 
hated the rows of cottages and houses that bordered 
it, she hated the gaujo and all his works to-day. Here 
on the bog and heath they were the anomalies, they 
were the blots, and she in her proper place. That 
gauji lady would look silly here. She wished that Lyd- 
don might see the gauji crossing a bog, afraid to wet her 
boots and afraid to jump from tussock to tussock. She 
gave vent to a hoarse shout which alarmed the peaceful 
pony, and sent him trotting down the hillside. Mary 
followed him, leaping the low gorse bushes, and chasing 
him into a gallop into the boggy bottom. She was as 
regardless of pool or quaking ground as he, but came 
to a stop at the first of the bog streams which drained 
the hill, and, stooping beside its yellow-brown water 
where it deepened into a pool, she rinsed her earthy 
hands and laved her hot and soiled face and the wounded 
eye. She ended by scooping up some of the water into 
her hollowed palms and drinking it. After that she 
still sat balanced on the heels of her muddy boots star- 
ing into the water, thinking. 

A rabbit whisked past her on the opposite side of 
the stream with a terrified glance at the enemy. Water- 
spiders on the surface of the stream moved themselves 


ALLWARD 


245 


forward against the current with a sharp movement, 
then let themselves glide back with it to the place 
from which they had started with monotonous regularity. 

Mary watched them unseeingly. She was only con- 
scious of the ache of misery in her wild little heart. Her 
sin in using bad talk to the raunie who was her lover’s 
guest rose up before her and outloomed the conduct 
she had resented in Lyddon. She had 44 spoke names ” 
to the raunie, and violated not only her own inbred 
instinct of courtesy, but her lover’s confidence in her. 
She imagined he must now see her in her own light as 
a rough, good-for-nothing little gypsy slut, not worthy 
of his condescension. She scarcely reasoned to herself, 
but sat there suffering dumbly. Love had stirred un- 
known instincts in her ; she was new to herself, and only 
recognised that the ache in her throat of unshed tears 
and the dread of her lover’s just contempt was a bitter- 
ness passing the bitterness of physical pain. 

44 1 must go,” she thought at last, and walked back 
into the village again and to her aunt’s cottage, at 
the back of which her tent was pitched. 

Aunt Matilda stood at the door. 

44 Mr. Allward bin yer, askin’ for you,” she said. 

44 Have he?” 

44 Had yer supper ? ” asked her aunt, not unkindly, 
noting with gypsy quickness the girl’s dispirited 
look. 

44 No.” 

44 Well, ov in, and have a bite with us. Old Joe 
he’ve a-got a drop of levina, and you an’ me’ll help 
him with it. ’Twill do you good. Who’ve bin a-dellin’ 
of you? ” 

44 Milly Chilcut have.” 

44 And what’ve she got to do with you ? That sarves 
you right for having to do with they Chilcuts. I 


246 


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wouldn’t go near ’em if you was to give me panj 
kullas. Milly’s mother an’t no better’n a low vassable 
lubbeny, and her gals’ll be the same, you mark what I 
say.” 

Mary came in and sat at the table, on which bread- 
and-cheese was already set, Joseph Jeff sat by the open 
hearth, in which a log fire was burning, smoking a short 
clay pipe. He was a taciturn man who rarely looked 
any one straight in the face, but peered at them side- 
ways, like a wild animal that must put constraint 
upon itself to meet the human eye. He had an air 
of distrusting every one. But he was learned in wood- 
craft and forest lore; he knew where the plovers nest 
year after year, he knew where the vixens had cubbed 
and how many there were in a litter, he knew where to 
find the deer, and could tell the age of a doe or buck 
by inspection of its slot by some occult process of his 
own. He earned a little by gardening and doing odd 
jobs for Miss Price and others in the village. His hands 
were deeply ingrained with soil, the nails were broken 
and full of earth, his face was gnarled and knotted like 
the bole of a tree. He was fond of his wife in his 
silent way, and once when ill, on which occasion a patron 
had offered to send the village nurse to him, he had 
uttered the longest sentence he had ever been known to 
make to a stranger — < 

“ No martel woman shall ever touch me while She’s 
in the house. I don’t want no other woman yer.” 

Stickler for propriety as Matilda Jeff was in all 
things, it was known to the hawkers that she and her 
husband had never been married according to the rites 
of the Church. Like most of the older generation, they 
had “jumped the broomstick and run off into the 
bushes,” to quote Mrs. Jeff’s account of it, and since 
then he had never looked at another woman. A well- 


ALLWARD 


247 


meant district visitor had once unearthed the never- 
mentioned fact that neither Church nor State had 
blessed their union, but Mrs. Jeff refused indignantly all 
entreaty to get married. 44 And make myself ridiklous, 
a despectable woman with five children, no, thank-you, 
miss ! Our way of gettin’ married is as good as any 
one’s, though it might be old-fashion. The gals can 
marry in church when their time comes — I’m a deligious 
woman myself, and I han’t got nothin’ against it, but 
it would set every one laughin’ if me an’ Joe was to get 
orange-blossomin’. Who married Adam and Eve? — tell 
me that. There’s nothin’ about a church weddin’ as I can 
hear about. There wasn’t no parsons then. They just 
did what Joe and me did: jumped the broomstick and 
went off into the bushes and said no more about it, 
meanin’ to hold to each other honest. That’s an old 
travellers’ custom, that is.” 

Joe Jeff produced two bottles of beer from a shelf 
by the fireplace, and proceeded to fill up his glass and 
that of his wife and niece. Mary only bit at her bread 
and cheese ; she was too unhappy to eat. The children 
were already abed, the bedridden grandmother was 
sleeping, Em’ly up at her married sister’s cottage, and 
the boys were not yet back. 

44 What did you and Milly get to words about?” 
asked Mrs. Jeff. 

44 Nothin’,” said Mary. 44 She got angry ’cos I asked 
her about Ted, and up with a stick and hit my eye.” 

44 It’s a disgracement about them two,” pronounced 
Mrs. Jeff. 44 Ted’s father’s a despectable man, and 
it’ll break his heart. I lay Ted’ll go strawberryin’ 
with the Chilcuts, the young good-fer-naught. We 
all knaws it’s Amelia Chilcut’s fault, and that she’ve 
a’ticed Ted away, but he haven’t much more in him 
than a straw to let hisself be ’ticed. Miss Price talked 


248 


ALLWARD 


to me about it to-day, and asked me to spik to Amelia. 

4 No,’ I says, 6 we don’t have nothin’ to do with they. 
’Tisn’t for me to give them chastisement,’ I says. 
When she went herself to see Amelia about it up at 
Burley Bushes, the talk she got skeered even her. 
Raunies has no call to mix theirselves up in folkeses’ 
business, say I. If they does, they’ll sometimes git 
more’n they expected. Eat yer cheese, Mary. They 
say Amelia got Charlotte Cooper to put a spell on 
Ted, so’s he’d follow them, but I don’t believe that, 
because Charlotte went down the road at the tail-end 
of their cart when they was shiftin’ their tan the 
other day, and cursed ’em in some of her half-Injun 
ta’ak. Old chovihaun, she is ! Don’t you never go an’ 
be dookered by her, Mary, my girl — if she’ve her eye 
on you she’ll bring you bad bokkt, that’s sartain.” 

44 When did Mr. Allward come? ” asked Mary. 

44 About an hour agone.” 

Mrs. Jeff usually preferred silence on this vexed 
question. Alius, contrary to all Mary’s expectation, 
had kept what she had seen to herself after unburdening 
herself to Mary about it. 

Lyddon’s friendly relations with the girls had dis- 
armed Mrs. Jeff’s suspicions, moreover. He joked with 
her as he joked with Alius and Em’ly and ’Enry. 
And it was known that artists were queerer than other 
gaujos, and acted as other people dared not act. If 
a real high and mighty gaujo with money in his 
pocket had been hanging around Mary, she explained 
to her husband, she would have packed the girl off up 
country. 

44 When’s your dad a-coming? ” Joe asked Mary sud- 
denly during the progress of the meal, his mouth full 
of cheese. 

44 1 dunno. Some time next wik, I specks.” 


ALLWARD 249 

“ Bill Pidgeley seen him in Christchurch yesterday,” 
said Joe, with the creaky slowness of a taciturn man. 

Mary’s face brightened. If this were true, he would 
come to Thorneyhill on the morrow, and they would 
be able to make their move to Verely, always her 
favourite camping-ground. She felt at home in the 
forest, as much as she felt reckless and unhappy in 
the vicinity of a village. In the forest no one ques- 
tioned her doings. The trees and bushes asked no ques- 
tions; their presence was friendly and dumb. The very 
smell of the leaf loam carried with it something that 
filled her with vague well-being. 

And she was glad that her father was coming back 
from one of his mysterious trips, usually connected 
with some deal in horseflesh. 

The talk fell upon various subjects. If her husband 
and niece were silent, Mrs. Jeff, her natural loquacity 
being reinforced by several glasses of beer, talked for 
them. Then Em’ly came in, her best diklo round her 
pretty throat; and Tom and Jim, both flushed with 
the beer they had drunk up in the village; and Mary 
prepared to go out to her tent. Her uncle always had 
the task of filling the bucket from the well in the garden 
before retiring for the night, and her aunt of raking 
out the fire and putting sticks to dry in the chimney 
corner, so that they might have everything ready for 
the cup of tea with which they began their day at five 
each morning. 

Mary went out through the rain-fresh garden with 
its potato patch to her dark tent, and crept into her 
smoky blankets. A small and dirty cat belonging to 
neighbours had preceded her, but to-night she was 
glad of the comfort of its thin and warm body, and 
hugged it in her arms, listening to the throb of its 
purring until she fell asleep. 


250 


ALLWARD 


Under the hawthorn hedge a quarter of a mile away 
Lyddon slept in his tent too. He had looked for Mary 
in all the usual trysting-places that evening in vain, 
had cooked his own supper, and gone to bed in not the 
best of tempers. He woke late the next morning, and 
as he dressed he wondered anew and with irritation 
why she had kept away. It was unlike her to sulk. 
One thing was certain; they must marry as soon as 
possible. Eleanor would tell Miss Price, and Miss Price 
would tell every one, and the only way to stop the 
clack of tongues was to marry Mary and take her 
away with him. He was learning by slow degrees that 
one can evade as little in a desert as in a town the 
annoyance caused by other people’s interest in what 
does not concern them — even less, in fact. The morn- 
ing was glorious. He set out for his work ; first person 
he met was Joe Jeff, slouching along the road. 

44 Mrs. Jeff gone to Christchurch? ” 

“ Yes,” said Joe, with a sidelong glance, not 
stopping. 

44 And Em’ly and Mary and all of them?” 

44 Yes.” 

So far so good. Lyddon went up to Miss Price’s for 
his day’s work, and that lady astutely forbore to 
come near him. The people to attack were — not Lyd- 
don, who had showed himself irresponsible, but Mary 
and her aunt. She had known Mary ever since baby- 
hood, and respect for Miss Price was one of the first 
principles taught to the village gypsy children by their 
mothers. She remembered that it was a flower-selling 
day, however, and that they would not be back from 
Christchurch till the late afternoon. She made up her 
mind to go down to Mrs. Jeff’s cottage after tea. 

She did so. A horse was cropping quietly outside on 
the patch of green between the cottage and the road, 


ALLWARD 


251 


and a donkey nibbled at the hollies opposite. A lean 
yellow mongrel of a breed popular among the gypsies 
in Thorneyhill barked at the old lady, and then fawned 
upon her. 

“Mrs. Jeff!” said Miss Price in her authoritative 
voice, ramming her old rush hat firmly on her head. 

A voice from inside the cottage answered her indis- 
tinctly, and then Mrs. Jeff appeared on the stone flags 
outside the always open door. In spite of her fair 
hair, her gypsy blood betrayed itself in the brightly 
coloured kerchief knotted around her neck, the ear- 
rings in her ears, and her healthy bronzed colour. 

“ Come in, come in, my lady ! ” she cried hospitably. 

Miss Price accepted her invitation, and entering, sat 
down on the wooden chair which Mrs. Jeff dusted 
for her. Though the remains of a meal were on the 
table, spread with a newspaper instead of a cloth, the 
living-room was clean. The dresser which faced the 
door was gay with ware of all kinds, the mantelpiece 
over the open fireplace was adorned by a short curtain 
of cretonne, and the floor, in spite of the fact that 
hens darted in now and again in the hope of finding 
crumbs, was well washed. 

“ And where are the girls and boys ? ” asked Miss 
Price. 

“ Em’ly’s up along with Prissy, my lady, becos 
Prissy’ve got a place in her breast and she’s bin to 
the infirmary in Christchurch to-day to see the doctor, 
an’ he says she’ve to wash it out with some stuff what 
he give her, and Em’ly’s helpin’ of her, look, my lady. 
And Alius is out along of her dad and brothers some- 
whars; they’ve just a-had their tea. Nothin’ won’t kip 
my old man indoors except mealtimes, my lady.” 

“And Mary James? I thought she was stopping 
with you.” 


252 


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44 She put up a bit of a tent in the garden, my lady, 
but her dad picked her up in the road as we was a-goin’ 
to Christchurch this marning about six o’clock, and 
she’ve a-took her things and gone off along of him.” 

44 And where have they gone? ” 

44 Up Verely or Forest Corner, I expects, my lady. 
That’s where old Sam James’ll go.” 

44 Well, Mrs. Jeff, it was about Mary that I wanted 
to see you. You remember that you came to me a little 
while ago about a man who was working for me and had 
been camping with the Jameses? ” 

44 Yes, my lady.” 

44 Have you noticed that Mary has had much to do 
with him? ” 

44 She cooks his supper for him and cleans up a bit 
for him, my lady, but there’s no harm to him; he’s 
a gennleman what’s got a fancy for our way of livin’. 
On’y playin’ at it, he is. He don’t treat Mary no 
differ’nt to what he treats Em’ly or Alius, my lady.” 

44 You have heard no talk of a marriage between Mary 
and this man ? ” 

44 A marriage? No, my lady, I never heerd of such 
a thing.” 

44 Mary has told you nothing of the kind ? ” 

44 No, my lady.” 

44 Well, you can see for yourself that the idea of a 
marriage like that would not be a happy one for Mary. 
I know something of this man, and I should be sorry to 
see Mary married out of her station to some one who 
is not in the least suited to her.” 

44 Is he rich, my lady?” asked Mrs. Jeff, her eyes 
bright with curiosity. 

44 He has some money. That is not the point,. If 
he were to marry a girl like Mary he would be injuring 
himself, and sooner or later he would realise it and 


ALLWARD 


253 


there would be unhappiness. I do not know how far 
this affair has gone, but I am not one of those who 
think that a marriage can ever mend past foolishness. 
You are a sensible woman, Mrs. Jeff, and you know 
that Mary would be far happier with a man who was 
one of yourselves. I will promise to give her five 
pounds the day she marries some suitable man.” 

44 I shan’t be seeing Mary for some time, my lady ; we 
shall go off strawberryin’ before she comes back this 
way ag’in, most likely.” 

44 Write to her.” 

44 I don’t know wheer to send a letter to, my lady. 
Sam don’t move reg’lar, like some of the travellers. 
Besides, I can’t write.” 

44 I’m not sorry to hear that,” said Miss Price. 44 1 
think that on the whole I have found more horse sense 
in those who cannot write or read than in those who 
fill up their heads with a lot of rubbish. Well, good- 
bye, Mrs. Jeff. I seem to have wasted your time. For 
Mary’s sake, I should hold my tongue about what I 
have told you. Here is a petticoat which may fit you ; 
we are about the same height.” 

44 You haven’t any old boots, my lady, have you? 
Yours just about fit Alius, and hers are almost wored 
through.” 

Miss Price’s dumpy figure ascended the green nap, 
and disappeared at the bend of the road. Mrs. Jeff 
watched her out of sight, and then hastily traversed 
the patch of garden behind the cottage, and, letting her- 
self down over the bank, walked down into the brick 
valley. It was the short cut to Prissy’s cottage, where 
she knew she would find Em’ly. 

In another minute she was sitting with the two young 
gypsy women, while her grandchildren, with unwashed 


254 


ALLWARD 


faces, played beneath the table with their mother’s 
hawking basket, unnoticed. Mrs. Jeff breathlessly com- 
municated to her daughters what Miss Price had said. 

44 But who could have a-told her that Adam wanted 
to marry Mary? ” exclaimed Prissy. 

44 P’raps Mary did,” said Em’ly the beautiful, darkly. 

44 Not she. She’ve a-kept it all dark. I’ll lay it was 
the fine rye hisself,” Mrs. Jeff declared. 

44 1 ain’t seen them a-choomerin’ or sweetheartin’,” 
said Prissy. 

44 That Alius is as deep as Mary. I warr’nt she’d 
a-knaw somethin’ of all this, the sly little varmint as 
she is.” 

44 How rich is he, do you think, mother ? ” 

44 I’ll lay he’s got his bit hidden away somewheres.” 

44 He kekker delled mandy chee I ” 

And so the clack of tongues prognosticated by Lyddon 
began and continued in Thorneyhill. 


CHAPTER XIX 


Mary James and her father did not make their camp 
in Verely or in the wilder, statelier aisles of Ridley 
Wood. They took the carts up the road until they came 
to the cross-roads at Pickett’s Post, where the Broad 
London highway sweeps past between Ringwood and 
Southampton. On this May morning, from the heights 
of the heathery plateau, they could see for miles 
through the blue heat haze. Ridley and Verely to the 
south-east shimmered in their fresh young green through 
a plum-dust of blue ; to the south-west the great moor- 
land valley, imbrued with royal blues and purples, ran 
towards Bournemouth; and to the north lay the wildest, 
most inviolate part of the whole Forest, towards the 
noble stretches of Cranbourne Chace and Gorley, God’s 
Hill and Fordingb ridge. The road dazzled, every out- 
line was clear and defined in the May sunshine. The 
sky was May month blue, lavender with heat near the 
horizon. 

The Jameses’ camp was to be at Forest Corner, so 
named because the wilderness meets the sown there, 
and the forest abuts on civilisation. Upon the western 
and northern boundaries of the Forest this division is 
clearly, almost abruptly, marked. It is as if there were 
a feud between the cultivated ground and the forest land 
which would never be healed, a feud as deep-grained and 
irreconcilable as that between gypsies and agriculturists. 

No other tents were visible among the furze-bushes 
and heather when they drew within view of their camp, 
though a rag or two fluttering from the bushes told 
that some vagrants had only just departed. The terriers 
255 


256 


ALLWARD 


footed it daintily beside the carts as they moved slowly 
down the rutted way, worn by many gypsy carts, to this 
favourite camping-ground. 

In such halcyon weather as this Mary would usually 
have gone along, as she had once told Lyddon, laughing 
to herself for sheer joy of living. But to-day she 
walked by the donkey’s head dispiritedly, smoking her 
cigarette and slouching as though she carried a basket. 

“ What’s the matter with you, my rakli? ” her father 
had asked once on the road. 

“ My yed ’urts where Milly hit it,” she lied. 

“ I’ll give Milly a pretty taste of a thick kosht when 
I sees her,” her father had said, and accepting her 
explanation had walked along in the happy coma of 
the tramp when the road is good, the sky blue, and a 
clay pipe alight. If he thought at all, he thought with 
lazy complacence of his own affairs. To-day he had 
business in Ringwood, so Mary would be left in charge 
of the camp during his absence. 

She had no sooner put up the tents, however, and 
unharnessed the donkey — her father took the cart with 
him — than a second family arrived. It was Joe 
Whicher and his wife with their four children. They 
had always claimed cousinship with the Jameses, and 
as they were clean, prosperous, pleasant-spoken people, 
the Jameses had usually shown themselves friendly 
towards them. To-day the sight of Mrs. Whicher’s 
fair, sunburnt, smiling face was very welcome to Mary. 
Though not well-off like Sam James, they were pros- 
perous enough through constant industry, and had just 
bought a cart of w T hich they were proud. One of the 
boys had gone to collect furze-tops for the horse to eat, 
the eldest girl was gathering wood in Ridley, and the 
youngest boy and baby sat in the cart. 

“ Where have you a-come from? ” Mary asked them. 


ALLWARD 


257 


“We bin down Verely,” Mrs. Whicher replied. 44 How 
are you, Mary? You don’t look yerself. What you 
bin doin’ to that eye of yourn? Now, chavis! don’t 
you dare to touch they sticks till I tells you, else I’ll 
take your heads off ! Faithy ! you stop now, or I’ll give 
you what-for ! ” 

Her cheerful face belied her words, and Mary helped 
her to drive in the tent-stakes while she explained that 
her eye was the work of Milly Chilcut. Mrs. Whicher 
was voluble in condemning the Chilcuts, but not severely ; 
she was never severe with any one, she liked to find 
excuses for anything in the world which went awry. 

44 What do you think Joe a-found just before we left 
Verely this morning?” she asked. 44 You tell Mary, 
Joe.” 

44 1 kicked ag’in somethink soft when I was buryin’ 
a bit of rubbish last night,” the young man said, lifting 
his pipe from his mouth. 44 I thought it was a dead fox 
by the feel of it, but I can’t a-bear to touch anything 
dead. I got a weak stomach, and it turns me if I do. 
So I went and looked this morning, and there was a fine 
girt setter, a black one, lyin’ there as dead as a door-nail, 
with his legs and tail right across the path! I’ll lay 
it’s they keepers up at the Manor has bin putting poison 
down for the foxes again, and this yer dog got holt of 
it and died. It was a sad sight, it almost turned me.” 

44 That must be the black setter they’re advertising 
for down Burley,” said Mary. 44 We seen a notice in 
Burley shop when we stopped there cornin’ yer. A 
pound reward.” 

44 There, Joe,” put in Mrs. Whicher excitedly, 44 you 
must goo back as fast as you can and tell them you 
found it.” 

44 They wun’t give me a pound for tellin’ them the 
dog’s dead.” 


258 


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44 Maybe they’ll give you somethink.” 

44 Well, you tell the chavis to go and cover it up with 
leaves when they comes back, so’s nobody else don’t find 
it.” 

Joe left his wife to finish setting up the camp by 
herself and went off as fast as he could. 

44 That’s where Joe ams shillings where other men 
arns pence,” said Mrs. Whicher proudly. 64 He don’t 
never let anythink pass.” 

44 Fancy his stomach being that weak he can’t touch 
a dead dog ! ” said Mary. 

44 He’s funny that way. Not even a dead rabbit. 
And another funny thing. He can’t a-bear anything 
rough or ticklesome next to his skin. He’d scratch 
hisself bleedin’ if he was to sleep in blankets, and not 
for the same reason as some travellers scratches their- 
selves, neither, you’ll never find live-stock in our tent. 
He’s tender-skinned and tender-hearted, Joe is. Faithy 
there takes after her dad. Perticler, she is.” 

44 Look yer,” said Mary. 44 I’ll run down to Verely 
and cover up the dog. It may be some time afore 
Jessie and Fred gets back.” 

Mrs. Whicher thanked her and accepted the offer, 
explaining to her where to find the corpse. She her- 
self was anxious to get a bit of washing done, and 
after that to get into Ringwood with a few pegs and 
bluebells that the children had picked this morning, 
which could be disposed of in the town. 

Mary went off, leaving her neighbours in charge of 
the camp, and set her face once more for Pickett’s 
Post. She was glad to be released from her guardian- 
ship of the camp and to escape to the woods which 
she loved. The air was fragrant, the sun hot on her 
face, the breeze sweet with the fragrance of a hundred 
moors. In spite of her unhappiness, her youth and 


ALLWARD 


259 


vitality asserted itself and sent hope pulsing through 
her veins. He would follow her, he would forgive her! 
And what then? inexorable reason cried sternly. The 
fact and always the fact was that between them was the 
great gulf that never could be bridged over. Even if he 
should forgive her, even if he should beg and implore 
her to marry him, she must refuse. Her weakness in 
giving in to him before appeared to her as weakness and 
foolishness and nothing else. He himself had viewed 
the gulf yesterday, he would realise it in the future, and 
more acutely as time went on, her pride whispered. 

Then as she turned in across the heathery track 
towards the woods she loved, the flies buzzing round 
her in the sun intoxicated with the joy of living, the 
earth sweet and peaty as the May warmth drew the 
heart out of it, every heather twig pregnant and 
springy, every bird in the bushes trilling its soul out 
into the blue air, a second voice told her that she be- 
longed to the forest, and that because she belonged 
to the forest which he loved that she would 
have a claim on him always, the claim of the earth which 
would receive his body when he died, the claim of the 
air he breathed, the roads leading north and south 
and allward which drew him with a lure he had never 
himself understood, the claim of the great trees with 
their beauty of trunk, branch and leaf, their heads 
lofty and erect, their roots set in the sweet core of 
their mother soil. 

She did not formulate her consolation in words, not 
even in thought, but it was an emotion which pos- 
sessed her, a comfort whispered by the buzzing, living, 
sun-bathed moor into her wild little heart, a something 
half-physical, half-spiritual which reassured her. 

She reached the edge of the wood, now green with 
young bracken, for the brown tight croziers of a 


260 


ALLWARD 


month ago were unfolding into tender fronds though 
the fern had not yet reached its full height. The 
steady hum of myriads of insects filled the sun-barred 
aisles of the wood. Life, pulsing and intense, made the 
air murmurous, crowded every great trunk, every fallen 
leaf with minute industry. Every particle of living 
Nature was busy, intent on its own affairs, uncon- 
scious of other aims, other destinies, just as Mary was 
unconscious. She did not observe Nature, she ab- 
sorbed it. 

The dead dog was found, and Mary, troubled by no 
such fastidiousness as Joe Whicher, drew the body 
underneath a bush and covered it over with leaves and 
pieces of green. Its tongue was lolling out, horribly 
swollen. The poor beast had evidently fallen in its 
effort to hunt for water to allay its burning torture. 
The address on its collar was an address in Scotland; 
apparently its owner had not yet troubled to alter the 
name-plate. Suddenly the pathos of it struck the 
gypsy and loosened her own long pent-up tears. They 
rose to her eyes and rolled down her face unheeded. 
She cried quietly almost without knowing why. She 
had never wept for a dead animal before, yet her tears 
were not so much for herself as for the dog, whose 
joyous life had been so treacherously and painfully cut 
short. 

Lyddon went to the Jeffs’ cottage as soon as he had 
finished his work, and was told that Mary had been 
intercepted by her father that morning and had gone 
north instead of south. Mrs. Jeff was careful to say 
nothing of Miss Price’s visit to him, but she drew her 
own conclusions from his look of blank amazement. 

“ No, she didn’t leave no message for you,” said Mrs. 
Jeff. “ If I was you, I’d goo along after her. She’s 


ALLWARD 


261 


funny-tempered, Mary is. When she gets sulky there 
ain’t no draggin’ anythink out of her. I ain’t got 
nuthink against her though, she’s a good gal and 
kushti-dikkin, too. You knows enough of our ta’ak to 
know what that is, I allow. There’s no one yer-abouts 
that has a word to say about Mary bein’ what she 
shouldn’t be.” 

Lyddon listened with some impatience. So Miss 
Price had been talking already. He knew that Mrs. 
Jeff was longing to make confidences that she dared not 
make, and he walked away abruptly. 

He had had enough of the village and Miss Price, 
and the tittle-tattle and the rest, which had only seemed 
endurable while Mary was there. He walked up to 
44 Heaven’s Gate ” and told the startled old maid that 
she must find some one else to finish the coach-house 
as, to his regret, he was called away. 

44 I suppose one mustn’t expect to keep a celebrated 
inventor working in one’s stable for ever,” said Miss 
Price caustically. “ You are going to follow Mary 
J ames ? ” 

44 I am going to marry her. There has been enough 
talk about her and me, and it may as well be known 
now.” 

44 You are going to add folly to folly. You will make 
Mary James miserable. The whole thing is madness. 
If you have trifled with the girl, go away and let her 
forget you and marry a man who will understand 
her.” 

44 That is for Mary to decide.” 

44 I pity Mary from all my heart.” 

44 She may need your pity or not.” 

44 Temper, temper ! Let us be friends.” 

44 1 warn you, Miss Price, not to try to interfere in 
this.” 


262 


ALLWARD 


44 1 warn you that I shall do all I can to prevent it. 
Not because of you, but because of her. I am coming 
to the conclusion that you should not marry any 
. one.” 

Lyddon withdrew himself in not the best of humours. 
There were times when Miss Price irritated him into 
fury, there were other times when he saw her for what 
she was, a kindly, interfering, generous, eccentric old 
creature, with a shrewd brain and sympathies which 
warred with inborn prejudices. 

He resolved to transfer his tent and belongings imme- 
diately to Verely. Mary would probably be there, 
Mrs. Jeff had hinted. He could get up there between 
seven and eight — he knew that gypsy camps are often 
dark and silent by half-past eight. But how was he 
to move? He had no cart, no hand-barrow on which to 
shift his things. He asked Joe Jeff, who told him 
that young Carpenter, who had married one of the 
Pidgeley girls, was going to Burley Street that evening, 
and might give him a lift for a trifle. 

Lyddon went round with him to the Carpenters’ 
cottage. Young Carpenter was feeding the pigs at the 
end of the little vegetable garden when they arrived, 
and replied that he wouldn’t mind giving Mr. Allward 
a lift. He spoke with the somewhat surly independ- 
ence of the thoroughbred Forester, whose suspicion of 
a stranger is innate. He would be starting in half-an- 
hour, he said. 

The black sow whose trough he had just filled with 
pigwash, grunted greedily during the transaction, while 
her litter attacked her teats from both sides. The sty 
was filled with dried bracken, and was clean compared 
with those of most Forest pig-keepers. 

“ That’s a fine sow,” said Lyddon, wishing to pro- 
pitiate the young man. 


ALLWARD 263 

“ I wouldn’t part with she for ten pounds,” said 
Carpenter. 44 She’s the best sow yerabouts.” 

“ How many trips have she had?” asked Joe Jeff. 

“ This is her fourth. I shall let her have another, 
then she’ll be fit for bacon.” His pride in the sow made 
him more genial. 44 The sows are best for bacon, 
look,” he explained to Lyddon, 44 when they’ve had a 
trip or two. This one’s bin a good sow. Some on 
’em eats the young pigs and then they’re good for 
nought but killing. If they eats one they eats all, and 
’tisn’t no good letting ’em have another trip after that. 
P’raps the little ones bites too hard with their teeth, 
but whatever ’tis, if she eats one she eats the martel 
litter. See that young sow in the next sty? She’s 
wuth about four pounds. Pigs pays if you knaws how 
to kip them. When this young pig yer is three wiks 
old, he’s wuth a pound. They costs a lot to kip, but 
there’s profit in it.” 

It was arranged that the cart should be outside Miss 
Price’s field in about twenty minutes, and Lyddon went 
back to take down his small tent and put his few belong- 
ings together. He stopped at the village shop to buy 
a loaf and a piece of bacon, however, and there he met 
Alius. 

64 You goin’ after Mary? ” the child asked, her sharp 
little face upturned to his. 

44 Yes, I am,” said he. 44 Are you sorry? ” 

44 Dunno,” said she. 44 Look yer, Adam, I never 
telled on you when I seen you and Mary down in the 
hollies choomerin’ each other. I lay you’ve got enough 
in your putsy to get mandy some of they pink pear- 
drops.” 

44 1 might,” he said, and the pear-drops were duly 
obtained. 

44 You cornin’ back yer? ” asked Alius. 


ALLWARD 


264 

“ I don’t think so.” 

She slipped her little brown monkey hand into his. 

“You orter buy a nice van and travel up the coun- 
try.” 

“ That’s what I’m going to do.” 

“ I’d like to travel always,” said the child. “ When 
I’m growed big I shan’t go into service like what 
Miss Price says I am to, I shall take a basket and go 
hawkin’. I shouldn’t like for to be in a house and wear 
a cap on me head and never go out nowheres.” 

“ It’s a wretched life,” said he, fully agreeing. “ I 
think you’re sensible, Alius. All the good meals and 
soft beds in the world wouldn’t make up to you what 
you’d lost. Besides, you’d never be able to jump.” 

“ More I should,” she reflected conclusively. 

Lyddon was obligingly driven by the young Forester 
right up to the verge of Yerely, and having said his 
“ good-night ” and offered payment which was refused, 
he was left to the silence of the wood and to set about 
finding a camp in the twilight. He found the sight of 
their former camp — there was nothing to indicate that 
human beings had ever lived there but the discoloration 
of the grass. Mary’s tent was not there, nor was she 
among the furze-bushes where small patches of ashes 
or the flutter of a discarded rag told of the travelling 
people. He chose a site for his own tent, set it up, and 
then ate his supper dispiritedly. As he sat smoking 
afterwards it seemed to him as if she must be present. 
The perfume of the wood smoke suggested her ; the still- 
ness and freshness of the great woods darkening in 
the chill of the spring dusk, the sleepy and stealthy 
rustlings and cracklings in bush and furze, the 
subtler forces of the forest were about him, embrac- 
ing him, bewitching him, whispering that nothing else 


ALLWARD 


265 


mattered, and that he who had chosen to share the life 
of the forest had chosen the immortal life of the earth, 
had become part of that spirit which dwells in the 
earth and is more eternal than the gods and spirits 
invented by men. There was no moon, and when the 
last daylight had gone — which was not till close upon 
nine — the wood hedged him about with immeasurable 
shadows, the hollies and furze-bushes seemed to draw 
close to his tent in the darkness as if in dumb friend- 
liness. It was not, he felt, that he humanised the forest 
in thus claiming its concern for him ; rather he crept into 
its dim consciousness, which lies apart from human 
affairs and can never share them. 

He tapped out his pipe — it seemed that the sudden 
noise disturbed the living creatures that were near but 
unaware of him — for there were startled movements in 
the undergrowth, a bird flew away overhead, a forest 
pony whose breathing had been audible before, started 
aside with a snort and sought safety. 

Then he heard human footsteps, uncertain, slow, 
stopping now and again, moving shufflingly. He got 
up and called out — 1 

« Who’s there? ” 

No answer. There was silence for a moment and 
then the footsteps retreated. 

He walked in their direction, resolved to find out who 
the intruder was. 

The footsteps quickened. He increased his pace; 
they broke into a run. He ran, too. Out on to the 
stretch of heather that lay between the woods and the 
high-road went the fugitive. He followed and got near 
enough in the darkness to see that it was a woman. 
She had crouched against a furze-bush hoping to elude 
her pursuer in its shadow, but he came up and she 
uttered a little cry. 


266 


ALLWARD 


44 Mary ! 55 he exclaimed in surprise. 

44 Oh, oh ! ” she panted. 46 1 thought ’twas some of 
they furrin chaps what comes up yer from Kent. 
You skeered me crool. I didn’t knaw your voice, 
Adam.” 

Her breast was still heaving, her face turned from 
him. 

44 What brought you here? ” he said. 44 Did you 
know that I had come? ” 

44 If I’d a-knowed, I wouldn’t have come. Some- 
think drawed me down. I didn’t want to goo to sleep. 
I wanted to walk somewheres. And so I come down 
yer to Verely. The trees is company when you’ve 
a-lived under ’em ever since you was borned. I didn’t 
know as any one was atehing yer, there wasn’t no one 
when I corned yer this morning.” 

44 What do you mean, you wouldn’t have come? 
Why did you run off like that without giving me warn- 
ing? Why didn’t you come near me yesterday even- 
ing? ” 

She preserved a sulky silence. 

44 Come to my tent now, I want to have things out 
with you.” 

He turned and did not wait to see if she were 
following. She did so, however, after a moment’s hesita- 
tion. 

They reached the tent, he lit a candle and stuck it 
near the entrance, and placed a piece of sack over some 
straw so that she might sit down. 

44 Where are you camping?” he asked, in a matter- 
of-fact voice. 

44 Up against Forest Carner. Mile’n half from 
here.” 

44 Your father is with you? ” 

44 Yes.” 


ALLWARD 267 

“ Well, I’m coming to see him to-morrow about our 
getting married.” 

“ No, you ain’t, then.” 

“ I beg your pardon, I am.” 

“ I ain’t goin’ to marry you.” 

“ We’ve had that all out before. You’re a naughty 
girl, Mary, and I am not pleased with you.” 

“ ’Cos I spoke rude to your raunie friend yesterday,” 
said she with her head high, all penitence evaporating. 

“ Because you let me hunt for you for three hours 
last night.” 

She was silent, and gazed at the candle with her 
great brown eyes. They slowly filled with tears. 

44 I ain’t fit for you,” she said, her voice catching. 
44 I didn’t ought to have called her what I did.” 

44 That wasn’t what made me angry with you,” he 
said. 44 It was for thinking that I was ashamed of 
you. You did think that. The reason I didn’t want 
you to meet that woman was because she wouldn’t 
understand you — nor you her, for the matter of that.” 

44 But you likes her.” 

44 Yes, I like her, and I owe a great deal to her, but 
that doesn’t prevent me from seeing irritating qualities 
in her, just as she sees them in me, I expect.” 

Mary sat quite still, the tears gathering and falling 
down into her lap, her gaze still on the candle. 

44 It’s no good,” she said. 44 ’Tis madness, you and 
me gettin’ rummered. I sees it when I’m away from 
you, Adam. When you’re close, look, all I thinks 
about is you, and that all you wants ain’t enough for 
me to give you. You ain’t never wanted me to beyave 
as I shouldn’t. But if you did, I shouldn’t stand against 
you. It ain’t in me. You turns me to water. I’d cut 
off my hair and pull out my teeth if you was to ask 
me to. Silly, ain’t it ? ” 


268 


ALLWARD 


She glanced up with one of her sweet smiles, though 
the tears were wet on her cheeks. 

Lyddon bent over and took her dark hand and 
kissed it. 

“ Mary!” 

She caught his arm and drew him down. 

44 Adam, Adam ! What you done to me to make me 
such a fool? ” 

44 Do you know, I felt you were in the wood just 
now? 99 he said, holding her close. 44 But you are the 
wood, and the wood is you, and I didn’t know which 
was which. That is why I love you, that is why I 
want you, Mary. No other woman in all the world 
could be part of myself in the way that you are.” 

She understood what was tangible in his speech. 

44 No other woman? ” she repeated breathlessly. 

44 None. None.” 

She sighed happily, and pressed her flushed cheek 
against his. 

44 If we have children,” said he, half lost in fancy, 
44 they will be like the world’s first children. 
They will be never taught the things that kill child- 
hood.” 

44 I’d like ’em to go to the board school,” said Mary 
apprehensively. 44 1 couldn’t larn ’em much, and you 
wouldn’t have no patience, Adam.” 

He burst into a shout of laughter. 

44 Mary ! Mary, you dear ! ” 

She smiled uncomprehending, and then whispered 
shyly — 

44 1 hopes we has lots of chavis, Adam.” 

He kissed her. 

44 1 bin so miserable to-day, Adam. I cried up yer 
in Verely as I ain’t a-cried since I was a chavi.” 

A sudden gust put out the candle, but neither stirred. 


ALLWARD 269 

“ Did you cook a nice bit of supper to-night? 99 she 
asked. 46 1 don’t see no fire.” 

“ I had some bread-and-cheese.” 

44 That ain’t nothin’ for a man what has bin workin’ 
all day. Let me make you a bit of a yog now and have 
somethink tasty.” 

He released her. 

44 No, it’s too late. Mary, you ought to be getting 
back.” 

“ I don’t want to go,” she said. 

44 You’ve got to go, child. I shall be round to see 
your father early to-morrow morning.” 

She was silent. 

44 Mary, come ! ” 

She looked at him with wistfulness and a smiling shy- 
ness in her eyes as he re-lit the candle and set it out 
of the draught. 

44 Ain’t I to stay any longer, Adam ? ” she said reluct- 
antly, in her hoarse coaxing gypsyish voice. 

He flushed, but remained inexorable. She looked 
such a child, such a lovely child, in the semi-lit tent, 
her dark hair about the olive oval of her face, her ear- 
rings catching the gold of the candle-flame, her great 
soft eyes alight and shameless in their innocent pas- 
sion. 

44 No, no, child.” 

The spell broke, her eyes clouded, she sat back. 

44 Well, then ” she said. 

44 Well, what? ” 

44 Good-night, Adam.” 

She rose. 

44 I’m coming with you,” he replied, blowing out the 
light. 

They walked together till they came out on the open 
moor. Mary suffered him to hold her arm. The faint 


270 


ALLWARD 


starlight lit their way, and they struck the cart-track 
which led up to the high-road. 

46 Why don’t you say nothing? ” she asked presently. 

44 1 was thinking.” 

44 Of me? ” 

44 Yes.” 

44 And you really koms me, tachipen ? ” 

The clutch on her arm tightened. 

44 Yes, I really love you, you little savage.” 

44 1 ain’t savage,” she said, piqued, taking the word 
to mean fierce. 

44 You are my tame gypsy, aren’t you? ” 

44 I’m anything you wants me to be, Adam.” 

44 Yes.” 

44 Up ag’in the trees there, there’s a nightingale’s nest 
with three eggs in it.” 

44 Where? ” 

44 There, up that hedge, round the kunsi. Hush, 
there it goes. The cock’s a-singin’. I likes to hear 
’em.” 

They stood still for a moment, the night-sweetness 
of the moor blown towards them on a light wind from 
the sea. The pure roulades and liquid phrases of the 
nightingale were borne to them where they stood on 
the road. 

44 Sounds a’most as if there was words to it,” said 
Mary, after a pause. 

44 Down in Normandy country people say that this 
is what the nightingale says. You listen, and tell me 
if you think it is like. 

“ Le bon Dieu m’a donng une femme 
Que j’ai tant, tant, tant battue, 

Et s’il m’en donne une autre 

Je ne la batterai plus, plus, plus, plus, 

Qu’un petit, qu’un petit, qu’un petit.” 


ALLWARD 


271 


“ What’s that? ” 

“ Peasant talk down there.” 

66 It’s as deep as our talk, Adam. What do it all 
mean? ” 

He translated it for her. 

“ That ain’t what he says,” Mary commented dis- 
dainfully. 

“ Well, what does he say, do you think? ” 

She was silent for a moment while the clear notes 
sounded a little further away. 

“ There isn’t no words for it,” she said at length. 
“ It’s just that he feels the spring and that bubblin’ 
out of him. He’s so happy about his eggs and his nest 
and that, that he couldn’t help singin’ if he tried. 
There’s times when every one feels like that.” 

“And when do you feel like that, then? ” 

She pressed close to him and spoke hoarsely. 

“ When I’m with you, Adam.” 


CHAPTER XX 


Miss Price was not the woman to give up an enterprise 
when once she had undertaken it. A letter which she 
received the morning after her interview with Mrs. Jeff 
decided her to instant action. She ordered breakfast 
at seven, and the pony-cart to be ready at a quarter to 
eight. She then drove off in the direction of Burley. 
She knew the habits of the gypsies well enough to be 
sure that if she did not find the Jameses at Verely, 
she would probably come upon them at Forest Corner. 
She was saved the trouble of hunting Verely, however, by 
an encounter with a poor travelling tinker and his 
family, who had just settled at the edge of the wood. 
The children had already scouted the surroundings, and 
declared there were no other camps near by; unless 
’twas a single man 44 what had gone off with his tilings 
in a cart that morning early.” Miss Price thanked 
the ragged family, distributed some pennies among the 
smaller fry, and turned her pony’s head towards the 
main road again. 

If she did not find the Jameses at Forest Corner, she 
would have to postpone her visit till another day, and 
gather what information she could from gypsies on the 
road as to their whereabouts. They might be by 
Hatchett’s Pond, or Beaulieu Rails, where Sam went 
frequently; or Sam might have mysterious business in 
the north of the Forest. She did not think that Mrs. 
Jeff would purposely have misled her as to the direction 
they had taken. 

She flicked the pony and clucked to it encourag- 
272 


ALLWARD 


273 


i n gly> shaking the reins on its fat back. She was 
dressed with her usual contempt for fine raiment. The 
ancient straw was on her head, she wore a pair of dog- 
skin gloves, which often served her when gardening, and 
her whole figure was enveloped in a grey dust-cloak of 
uncertain age. The pony moved complacently up the 
long, sunny, white road to Pickett’s Post. It needed 
constant reminders from its mistress, who' gave them 
apologetically. Miss Price had sandwiches and a bottle 
of milk at the bottom of the governess cart, and a 
feed for the pony. Meanwhile the old maid gave herself 
up to happy enjoyment of the fresh, beautiful air and 
the view across the moor. She did not admit that the 
wide prospect excelled her own over the Avon valley, 
but she appreciated it in a large-minded spirit. Arrived 
at the top of the hill near the spot where the gallows 
had stood in ancient times, she whipped up the pony and 
set off down the Ringwood road. Two of the Whicher 
children sat on the top of the bank at the turning to 
Forest Corner; they had been left in charge of the 
tents while their father and mother pursued their 
various avocations. The board school authorities can- 
not catch these little vagrants, but they are as a rule 
far quicker of tongue, brain and hand than the country 
children. There was a duet of “ Good-morning, my 
lady,” in response to Miss Price’s greeting, and when 
she inquired if the Jameses were encamped there, the 
answer came quick and smilingly, with an offer of guid- 
ance to the spot. 

Miss Price declined, but promised the children money 
for sweets if they would hold the pony’s head, while 
she found her way herself through the bushes. She 
followed the path round the field, and soon the drab 
roofs of the bee-hive tents, patched and smoky, met her 
eyes above the gold of the gorse. 




ALLWARD 


The first proved to be the Whichers. There were 
two a little further on, and a donkey limping, hobbled 
at a little distance. 

44 Mary James ! ” shouted Miss Price. 

There was silence for a minute, and then Mary’s 
head, bound about by a bright kerchief, rose out of the 
division between the two tents. 

44 Come out a minute, my dear,” said Miss Price 
across the furze bushes. 44 1 want to speak to 
you.” 

44 Yes, my lady,” said Mary obediently, and threaded 
her way through to the knoll upon which the old lady 
stood. Miss Price was aware of a subtle difference in the 
girl. Her cheeks were flushed and fuller, her eyes, al- 
ways her best feature, brighter than ever, her print frock 
tidy and her apron clean. Miss Price admitted to 
herself that Mary had grown into a most handsome 
and graceful girl. 44 There’s a look of breeding 
about some of these gypsy women,” thought the 
old maid. 44 1 don’t altogether wonder at Richard 
Lyddon.” 

44 Have you anything for me to sit on? ” Miss Price 
asked. 44 I’m afraid of the damp, and I want to have 
a good talk with you.” 

44 Will you come into the tent, my lady? ” 

44 Are you alone? ” 

44 Yes, my lady.” 

44 Then I will, with pleasure. It isn’t the first time 
that I’ve sat in your father’s tent. I am glad that 
your father has never taken to living in a cottage. 
There are far too many houses about. All this building 
is ruining the Forest.” 

44 He can’t a-bear sleeping with a roof over his head,” 
Mary replied, leading the way to the tent. Straw and 
dried bracken overspread with a neat piece of carpet 


ALLWARD 


275 


covered its floor. Mary pulled out a bundle for Miss 
Price to lean against, and then sat down cross-legged 
herself in gypsy fashion. 

64 I’m not going to beat, about the bush, Mary James,” 
began Miss Price, drawing off the dogskin gloves and 
smoothing them out on her lap. 44 I’ve known you since 
you were a small baby — a tiny, dark little thing — in 
your mother’s arms, and she was lying in a van just 
below St. Catherine’s Hill. I brought her over some 
comforts, poor soul, and very pleased she was. Ah, 
yes, you don’t remember that, Mary. Your people 
used to think a lot of themselves in those days, and 
there were gypsies of the real old sort about, wjio 
looked down on the half-breeds. Your own mother fol- 
lowed the good old gypsy custom, and had all the 
plates and dishes used by her during her confinement 
broken up afterwards so that no one should use 
them.” 

44 Yes,” said Mary, her eyes wide with interest. 44 The 
old folks used to do that. The 4 poggerin’ opray,’ they 
used to call it.” 

44 I’ve always done what I could for your people,” 
continued Miss Price impressively, 44 just as my father 
did before me. I’ve often heard him say that he never 
missed a chicken or a wisp of hay, however near the 
gypsies were camped, because they were so grateful to 
him. I’m telling you all this, my dear, to show you 
that I wish you well and that I think highly of your 
people.” 

44 You always bin very good to us, my lady,” Mary 
returned. 

44 Well, in return, I want you to be truthful with 
me. What is this about Mr. Lyddon — whom your peo- 
ple call Allward? ” 

Mary hesitated, her face flushing, and her gaze fell 


276 ALLWARD 

on her dark hands. Miss Price’s eyes followed, and 
she gave a start. 

“ Bless me ! you’re not married already ! ” 

There was a plain gold ring on Mary’s third finger 
of the left hand. 

“ Not ezackly, my lady,” said Mary shyly. “ Adam, 
he made me put this on this marning. He come up 
yer and talked to father, and father he gave me to 
him like what mother’s father gived her to father, 
and we jumped the broomstick. We’re to get married 
proper as soon as the bands 1 are put up. Father gone 
to ast the captain what’s camped down in Burley about 
it.” 

“ What captain ? ” 

“ The Church Army captain. He goes around mar- 
ryin’ travellers, look, my lady, and when he finds some in 
the bushes what’s living together without gettin’ married 
in church, he gives ’em copper rings what he keeps in 
his pocket, and gets ’em married in church.” 

Miss Price breathed more freely. 

“Then you are not legally married? You are not 
living together? ” 

“ He ain’t ast me to yet, my lady.” 

“ You must remember this gypsy marriage doesn’t 
count in the eye of the law.” 

“ No, my lady,” said Mary submissively. 

“ The other marriage must never take place.” 

Mary’s great eyes were frightened now, and she said 
nothing. 

“ Where is Mr. Lyddon? ” 

“ He’s gone to Ringwood to see about getting a van 
for us to live in. There’s a man wants to sell one down 
there.” 

1 To the uneducated as well as to the gypsy the word ‘ banns ” is 
known as “ bands/’ implying the bonds or binding of marriage. 


ALLWARD 


m 


44 Then he won’t be back yet.” 

44 No, my lady.” 

44 Well, Mary, I want to tell you why you can’t 
marry this man. To begin with, he comes of gentle- 
people, and marriages between people of your sort 
and gentlemen are hardly ever a success. But that’s 
not the real reason. He is not an ordinary man. He 
is a clever man, a man whose brains may be useful to 
his country. He is like lots of other clever people, a 
little mad, and therefore he is unreliable. He will make 
you very unhappy one of these days. He has taken up 
this life, he has taken up with you, in a freakish impulse. 
He may do something totally different in a freak, too, 
and where would you be? You may think it fine to 
marry some one who has a little money and is different 
from your own men-folk, but one of these days you’ll 
be lonely, and wish you had kept to the good gypsy rule 
and married one of your own blood, or at any rate of 
your own way of life.” 

44 He don’t want to live no different to what I bin 
livin’,” said Mary. 

44 Not at present, perhaps,” said Miss Price. 44 But 
you must remember that you will be cutting him off 
from his old friends, and that some day he may regret 
it.” 

44 He ain’t one to change,” said Mary doggedly. 

44 Not one to change? My dear child, even with the 
slight knowledge I possess of him, I have learnt that 
he has had as many changes as a chameleon. Engaged 
to be married to a girl, and when that was broken 
off marrying some one else. Still continuing the 
friendship with the first girl, and nearly dragging her 
into the divorce courts with him through thought- 
lessness of her reputation; leading her to think that 
he would marry her when he was free, and then carry- 


278 


ALLWARD 


ing on with you — if you don’t call such a man unstable 
as water — * — Well, they all are, more or less. Do you 
suppose he will be perfectly contented when he has 
married you? There are some men who are always 
wanting lands beyond the stars, and I believe he is one 
of them. He will be talking in one language and you 
in another, and some day he’ll wake up to the fact and 
want to wander off somewhere else. With you gypsy 
people wandering is physical, something drives your legs 
along the roads, you migrate like the birds do, just 
because you don’t know why. With him it is spiritual. 
One day you may irritate each other. I appeal to you, 
for your own happiness, to leave him, and to let him 
free. If he ever marries, and I hope he never will, 
he should marry some one whom he cannot make miser- 
able.” 

Miss Price was conscious of Jesuitical reasoning in 
her statement of the case. Only one thing was para- 
mount in her mind. She honestly disbelieved in such 
a marriage, and she meant to stop it even if she painted 
Lyddon blacker than he deserved. She felt that she 
was doing them both a service. She had made up her 
mind about Lyddon, and labelled him ; like many women 
she was entirely negligent of the unexpected and subtler 
elements of the case. Mary understand only one-half of 
what she had said. 

“ What lady was that he was goin 5 to marry ? ” she 
asked in a stifled voice. 

“ The lady who came to see him the other day.” 

“ And do she want to marry him still? ” 

Miss Price hesitated. “ I have reason to think 
so.” 

Mary was silent. A dull resentment against Lyddon . 
arose in her heart that he had not told her explicitly 
of his past relations with the woman. He must have 


ALLWARD 


279 


loved her once since he had been about to marry her — 
he must have kissed her. A dull red flushed her cheek. 
She wished she could have struck down the raunie who 
had come and patronised her. Tell her fortune! The 
brazen creature! Hunting him down in his tent. 
Brazen ! Brazen ! with her fine clothes and her smiling 
face ! 

“ Well? ” said Miss Price. 

44 I’m a-thinkin’,” replied Mary sullenly. 

All her fears of the former day, fanned by her sus- 
picious resentment, came crowding in upon her. Miss 
Price seemed to embody them, to make them concrete. 

Then she said hoarsely and defiantly — 

44 He don’t kom her ; he won’t want her like what he 
wants me.” 

44 You gypsy girls know something of men, Mary, 
and you know as well as I do that what a man wants 
most is often that which is nearest. If one public-house 
is nearer than another, a man gets a habit of dropping 
in there for his beer rather than into the one that’s 
further away. Mr. Lyddon has seen a lot of you, 
Mary. Your pretty face has made him forget him- 
self. You’ll be doing yourself an injury by marrying 
him, and you’ll be injuring him too. In a word, it 
isn’t suitable for a man like that to be marrying a 
traveller girl. You know yourself that it isn’t, now 
don’t you? ” 

46 My dad’s a-given me to him,” said Mary. 

44 That doesn’t mean anything. If he thought that 
binding, he wouldn’t be wanting to get married in 
church as well, would he? ” 

Mary made no reply. 

44 If he were one of your own people, it would be 
different. I should say that if you’d jumped the 
broomstick that it was more or less binding. It’s an 


280 ALLWARD 

old custom, .and old customs must be respected. But 
it’s not his custom.” 

Mary said nothing. She wanted to run away from 
this merciless flaying of her heart, to escape, to leave 
it all. 

The surgeon continued, “ I’ve a letter here, Mary, 
which will give you an opportunity to get away and 
think it all over. You’ve never left the Forest, and 
you’ll appreciate it all the more for being away for 
a time. A friend of mine in Bournemouth has written 
to me to know if I can send her a Thomeyhill girl to 
train for domestic service. She’s a kind woman, and 
it won’t do you any harm to learn how to cook and 
do housework now that so many of you have taken to 
living in cottages. You’ll marry some day, and it may 
be useful to you. I will take you over myself and 
get your outfit, and see you settled in.” 

Miss Price’s tone was brisk and energetic, and Mary 
quailed before it. 

“ I don’t want to, my lady,” she replied faintly. 

“ Nonsense,” said Miss Price. “ You’ll thank me one 
day. Now come along, Mary James. I’ve wasted the 
morning over you, and I may as well spend the afternoon 
on you too. We can drive on to Ringwood; I’ll 
put the pony up at the Crown, and we’ll get the 
train in to Bournemouth. There’s no time like the 
present.” 

“ I ain’t a-goin’,” said Mary, trembling. It was 
something unheard of in Thorneyhill to brave Miss 
Price directly. She might be circumvented, but defied, 
never. 

“ Then you are an ungrateful, shameless girl,” said 
Miss Price. 44 1 thought better of you. I wish your 
mother were alive. She was a sensible woman. A fine 
lot you care for Mr. Lyddon, to ruin him by marrying 


ALLWARD 


281 


him. Tie him up, ruin him and yourself. Are you 
going to tell me there’s a reason for your getting mar- 
ried in such a hurry ? ” 

“ He ain’t never treated me as he shouldn’t,” said 
Mary resentfully, tears standing in her eyes. 

“ That’s not what they say in the village, Mary. 
Are you sure you’re speaking the truth? If you don’t 
know it, Mr. Lyddon does, and that’s why he thinks 
himself obliged to marry you.” 

Miss Price had thoroughly lost her temper. 

Mary watched her rise, draw on the shabby gloves 
and leave the tent. 

The old maid walked stiffly through the gorse bushes, 
and along the track till she came to where the Whicher 
children stood holding the pony’s bridle-rein. Then 
she turned back on a sudden impulse. Arrived at the 
tent she looked in, and saw Mary lying prone on the 
straw, face downwards. Miss Price bent down and 
patted her on the shoulder. 

44 I’ve spoken hastily, Mary. If you’ve made up 
your mind, my dear, I have not the right to say any- 
thing. But if you ever get into trouble, or if you are 
ever in difficulties, just let me know. There, there, 
child, don’t begin to cry like that.” 

Mary sat up suddenly, and threw back her hair with 
a passionate gesture. 

44 I’m a fool, I’m a fool,” she cried. 44 1 knowed all 
along it was foolishness. My dearie duvvel, my dearie 
duvvel! I runned away from him once — I did.” 

Miss Price was puzzled. Mary almost pushed her 
aside, and wiping her eyes on her apron, began hastily 
to gather her things together. The broken comb, the 
backless brush, her few garments, her cigar-box full 
of treasures, she swept them all together and tied 
them up in a bundle. Then she reached for the hat 


282 


ALLWARD 


trimmed with tawdry flowers, which she had worn to 
the races, and put it on her head. 

“ I’m ready ! ” she said fiercely. 

“ You are coming? ” 

“ Yes, I’m a-comin’,” answered Mary. 


CHAPTER XXI 


The events of that day were like a dream to Mary. 
She was taken to shops by Miss Price and fitted out 
with a servant’s wardrobe and more underclothes than 
she had ever had before in her life, and then, having 
left her old clothes to be sent to her aunt in Thorney- 
hill, was arrayed in the unaccustomed black of her 
new calling, and after a hasty meal in a restaurant, 
was taken in a tram-car by her indefatigable patroness 
to a house in West Bournemouth. It was one of a long 
row of red-brick gabled villas, each trying to achieve a 
distinctive note and each failing. This house was 
called “ Windermere,” and it boasted a small front 
garden and three fir-trees. A fair girl in white cap and 
apron opened the door, and Mary was left sitting in the 
hall while Miss Price was ushered into the drawing-room. 
The gypsy was half-dazed with fright and bewilder- 
ment. The air of the house was stifling and stale, no 
windows were open, and the tick-tock of the hall-clock 
and the aggressive appearance of the hall-stand with 
its umbrellas, its clothes-brush, its rain-cloak, seemed 
menacing and oppressive. 

An elderly lady had rustled down the stairs with an 
inquiring glance at Mary, and had disappeared into 
the drawing-room, and Mary could hear the murmur 
of their voices, but not what they were saying. After 
a while the fair girl in cap and apron came and peeped 
out at her from a door communicating with the back 
regions. She said — 

66 You come after the place? ” 

283 


284 


ALLWARD 


Mary could scarcely command her dry tongue to 
whisper 44 Yes ” in a frightened voice. 

44 She ain’t bad. Religious and all that. Comes 
down sharp on you if there ain’t enough left of the 
joint. She don’t eat nothin’ herself and spects you to 
eat nothin’, too. Bread-an’-butter’s what she’d like you 
to live on, and cocoa. I ’ate cocoa. Filthy stuff! 
This your first place? ” 

44 Yes.” 

44 She always gets fresh ’ands if she can. Cheaper. 
Trainin’ ’em she calls it. I’m leavin’ in three weeks 
to get married. Tram conductor name of ’Ogg. There 
ain’t too much to do here, that’s one blessin’. Mrs. 
Jason, the char, comes in of a Saturday and Wednesday 
to clean out. You got a young man? ” 

Mary was silent. 

44 Well, if you ’ave, don’t you let V r know. She 
can’t a-bear you to ’ave a bit of fun with a man. She 
won’t let mine come near the ’ouse, that’s when she’s 
in. When she’s not ” 

The girl’s face dimpled, but a movement in the draw- 
ing-room at this juncture frightened the fair-headed 
maid back into her own domain. The door opened, 
and Miss Price summoned Mary within. 

Mary, previously instructed by Miss Price to say, 
44 Yes, ma’am ” instead of 44 Yes, my lady,” found her- 
self required to use little more than that formula. Miss 
Price did most of the talking and supplied her answers, 
prompting a 44 Yes, ma’am ” with 44 Can’t you, Mary? ” 
or 44 Isn’t that so, Mary? ” 

Miss Johnson, the grey-haired mistress of the house, 
told Mary that she had decided to give her a trial, and 
that Louisa, her present maid, would put her in the 
way of things before she left to get married. She said 
that she always took a mother’s care of the girls in her 


ALLWARD 


285 


house, and endeavoured to give them good Christian 
surroundings and a kind home. The last girl she had 
had from Thorneyhill had proved a quick good girl, 
and had left to better herself. She hoped that Mary 
would be as ready to learn. 

“Yes, ma’am,” said Mary, her head aching, and her 
instinct being to run out through the door and away 
as hard as she could go. 

“ You can accompany Miss Price to the door, Mary,” 
said Miss Johnson. “ I understand that your clothes 
have only just been bought and are being sent up 
from the shop presently. I hope you are properly 
grateful to Miss Price for her kindness and generosity 
to you.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Mary automatically. 

In the hall Miss Price took her brown, silver-ringed 
hand. 

“ Good-bye, Mary, my dear. I’ve done the best I 
could for you, and your father will find the message 
pinned up in the tent where we put it. It is best to 
give them no address for the present. If you need 
anything, or are in any difficulty, write to me. I dare 
say it will be hard for you at first, but a little hard 
discipline is good for us. I’ve had plenty myself. 
Miss Johnson is a kind woman if you take her the right 
way. I’ll tell your Aunt Matilda Jeff what I have done 
to-night. I must be going now to catch my train back 
to Ringwood. Good-bye, my dear, be a good child.” 

Mary choked down a sob in her throat and muttered 
a “ Yes, my lady,” and then she burst out — « 

“ Oh, take me with you, my lady. I can’t abear this 
place. I can’t breathe proper yer. I won’t go near 
Adam if you’ll take me back along with you. I can’t 
abear this.” 

“ Nonsense, Mary. You must control yourself. 


286 


ALLWARD 


Now be a good girl and be brave. There are lots of 
gypsy girls in service who’ve done well: one of the 
Pidgeley girls, one of the Whites. You’ll soon get 
accustomed to it.” 

Mary heard the door close on her with a great 
sinking of the heart. She felt like a trapped rabbit, 
her heart beating wildly, her eyes full of the fear of 
death. 

“ Louisa will show you your room, Mary,” said Miss 
Johnson, coming out into the hall. “You will share 
it with her for the present ; I shall put in a camp-bed for 
you as Louisa’s is narrow as it is. Louisa ! take Mary 
upstairs.” 

Mary followed the fair-haired maid up the stairs and 
into a tiny room, the window of which was tightly 
closed. One small chest of drawers and a row of pegs 
were full of Louisa’s clothes. 

“ I dunno where the other bed’ll go ! ” said that 
damsel. “ Or where your box ’ll go, either. These 
beds is that low you can’t even get an ’at-box under- 
neath. We’ll ’ave to manage some’ow, though.” 

The rest of the day was part of an evil dream. Mary 
did what she was told, but like a sleep-walker. The 
fair girl put her down as homesick and was merciful to 
her, having been through that misery herself long ago. 
At ten the girls went in for evening prayers before 
locking up the house, and then Mary went up to bed. 

That night! Could she ever forget it! To her, ac- 
customed to sleep with nothing but a brown blanket 
between her and the sky, and the wind in the tree- 
tops as lullaby, the room with its closed window was 
a veritable Black Hole of Calcutta. Feverish with 
heat and misery she tossed from side to side, hating 
the sensation of the sheets next to her, hating the roof 
which weighed down upon her as if it were ready to 


ALLWARD 


287 


crush her; a wild creature in a trap, frightened and 
wretched. Then the thought of Adam came to torment 
her. To have left him without a word of explanation: 
how could she have done it? She yearned after him 
fiercely, she reached after him in the darkness with 
hot arms, saying, “ Forgive me, Adam ! I only done 
it for you, because I loves you better’n I loves myself.” 
A funn3^ way of showing love, to leave the man she told 
herself, and then reproached herself for looking back- 
wards. It was the only way, and Miss Price’s coming 
was the finger of Fate to point her destiny. Only Mary 
did not call it destiny, she would not have known the 
meaning of such terms. But fatalism, or rather bow- 
ing to circumstances, was strong in her outcast blood. 
It was not to be, and what was not to be was ordained 
long before she had been bom in the yellow caravan 
under the hill. 

She awoke the next morning after a tardy sleep with 
an aching head and heavy eyes. The fair girl had to 
shake her into consciousness. 

“ It’s six o’clock ! How you do sleep! ” 

Mary’s day was chiefly spent in the hot kitchen. 
The smell of food, the lack of air, the pressure of the 
walls was as great a torture to her as it had been the 
day before. If only she could have done her cooking 
out-of-doors ! And the sun was shining outside. She 
missed the buzz and soundful silence of the great moor; 
she missed the popping of the gorse pods, the intrusion 
of wild bees. But she stuck to it doggedly and her 
common-sense helped her to understand when Louisa 
explained the peculiarities of the oven and such 
matters. 

“ Don’t you never go out? ” she asked once wistfully, 
standing by the back door when it stood open for a 
minute. 


288 


ALLWARD 


44 Every Wednesday hevening from eight to ten, and 
every Sunday afternoon, after I’ve laid the tea and put 
the kettle on,” said Louisa promptly. 

64 Then you never goes out but once a week when 
the sun is a-shinin’ ? ” Mary cried aghast. 

44 Oo cares about the sun as long as you gets your 
time off? I want to be off with Mr. ’Ogg, that’s all 
I cares. Sun? There’s too much sun in this kitchen 
to please me. It gets fairly roastin’ of an afternoon 
when the sun’s on this side of the ’ouse.” 

But Mary’s heart sank. She might as well be in 
prison. To have rolled herself a cigarette and smoked 
it would have soothed her, but she knew that this would 
be forbidden in such a house. It was then that the 
thought of escape first dawned upon her. It would kill 
her to stop here. She would earn money to pay back 
Miss Price for what she had spent upon her some- 
how, and she need not let any one know where she was. 
Strawberrying was soon coming on, she could earn 
enough to keep herself for some months if they had a 
lucky season. The idea had no sooner germinated than 
it grew and grew. She must escape, somehow and 
somewhen, she must, she must ! 

44 1 tell you what you look like,” said Louisa sud- 
denly. 44 I’ve been puzzlin’ over it ever since I first saw 
you. You’re the livin’ image of one of the gypsy girls 
that sells flowers down there in the Square.” 

Mary had been warned by Miss Johnson not to 
mention that she was a gypsy, and she held her tongue 
now. 

44 You needn’t mind that,” said Louisa kindly, 
44 they’re very ’andsome. A rough lot, they are. Most 
of ’em lives Parkestone way, near Constitution Hill. 
I wouldn’t go round there after dark if you was to pav 
me.” 


ALLWARD 


289 


The bell rang and interrupted Louisa, and she obeyed 
its summons. 

46 Bother ! Got to take this parcel to the post,” she 
grumbled. 44 Why can’t the old girl take it out her- 
self? ” 

44 Let me take it,” said Mary eagerly. 

44 You don’t know where the office is. Well, there’s 
no reason you shouldn’t. First turning to the left, 
and then along to the right till you comes to a big 
tobacconist’s at the corner. That’s the nearest. ’Urry 
up, because there’s all that silver to be cleaned.” 

Mary ran upstairs, put on the sober hat which Miss 
Price had chosen for her, and went out by the back 
door bearing the parcel and the sixpence which was to 
pay for the stamp. The sun greeted her outside, the 
breeze brought her, even in this town, the odour of 
the firs. She walked along almost joyously, for the 
pleasure of feeling the fresh air against her cheek. 
The post office was found and the parcel despatched. 
It cost fourpence. Mary came outside and stood at 
the door irresolutely. She saw a woman on the other 
side of the road with a basket of flowers on her arm. 
The shawl, the slouch, the red-brown skin, the gold 
earrings told Mary that one of her people was before 
her. She crossed the road quickly, and coming up to 
the woman, touched her arm. 

44 You want some flowers, my dear? ” said the woman 
coaxingly. 44 Nice and cheap, beautiful flowers to-day. 
I’ll sell them cheap to you because of your nice brown 
eyes, my darling, and tell you something lucky that I 
see in them, too, if you’ll let me.” 

44 You one of the Heavenly Bottom lot? ” asked Mary 
breathlessly. 

44 Yes, my dear, that’s whar I lives.” 

44 Is Gerania Smith there ? ” 


290 


ALLWARD 


44 She wuz, dearie, she wuz, but she’s gone up country. 
Who might you be? You’ve a Romany look yourself, 
I lay you have.” 

44 I’m Mary James.” 

44 What old Sam James’s gal? ” 

44 Awali,” said Mary, using the gypsy “ yes.” 

“ Dordi, dordi ! and so you’ve gone into sarvice ! 
Well, you’d best come and dikk us all one of these 
yer divvuses, and we’ll pee a little levina and ker a 
bit of peeass. So you’re old Sam James’s gal. A nice- 
lookin’ gal you’ve a-growed, my dear, a real rinkeni 
kauli young raunie 1 Where’s yer dad, then, and what’s 
he a-doin’ of? ” 

44 He’s up at Forest Carner,” said Mary. 

44 And how d’ye like sarvice, my darling? ” 

44 1 ’ate it,” said Mary, and her eyes filled with tears. 
The sound of the gypsy voice made her homesick and 
miserable. 

“You take my adwice and don’t you stay,” said 
the woman in a low voice. 44 There’s as much money 
to be made by hawkin’ as ever there is in sarvice, and 
no b — — gauji to be over you. Sarvice ain’t made for 
our people. Gauj is is made different. What they likes 
ain’t what we likes.” 

44 I’m going to run off,” said Mary, her tears drying 
and her soul firing. 

44 That’s right, my darling, you do it now and you’ll 
never repent. Your cousin, Gerany Smith’s darter, lives 
up there in Heavenly Bottom, and she’ll give you a 
roof to your head, I’ll warr’nt. You got some money? ” 

44 Tuppence that ain’t mine,” said Mary, who held 
the change out of the sixpence in her hand. 

44 She’ll never miss tuppence. If you goes off sudden 
you loses your wages, so you take my adwice and kip 
what you can. Yer’s another tuppence to buy some- 


ALLWARD 


291 


think to eat. Off you go, my gal, and lucky’s the day. 
When yer stardy’s on yer sherro you’re well thatched, 
ain’t you. You knows the way to Heavenly Bottom? ” 

“ Yes,” said Mary. “ But I never bin there.” 

“ Well, you go straight to your cousin and tell her 
I sent you. She lives in a van and a shed there, any 
one ’ll tell you. I got to go off' now, but I’ll see you 
to-night.” 

She gave Mary a kindly warming look out of her 
cunning and sun-wrinkled eyes, wise with gypsy wisdom, 
and went off, her basket supported against her hip. 
Mary stood still awhile as if hypnotised and then turned 
slowly back towards “ Windermere.” The wind blew 
the city dust in her face, people passed her intent on their 
own business. She was in the Christchurch Road, and 
the trams were passing. Again she paused without 
noticing where she stood. A tram approaching drew up 
and the conductor looked at her inquiringly, then she 
realised that she was beside a post marked “ Trams stop 
here if required.” 

Almost without volition she ran forward and got into 
the car, into which the conductor helped her as the 
car went off. “ Where to? ” he was saying the moment 
afterwards. 

“ Constitution Hill,” Mary said, and wondered if she 
had spoken or if something or some one had used her 
lips. 

“ Change at the Square,” said the conductor briefly, 
and clipped her ticket. 

Gradually the full meaning of her escape dawned 
upon the girl. She had broken for ever the bonds of 
servitude. She had burnt her boats behind her. As 
regards Miss Price, she felt compunction, but not shame. 
Miss Price had asked the impossible of her. The letter 
of her law Mary had been unable to keep. In the spirit 


292 


ALLWARD 


she would obey her by keeping away from Adam. Miss 
Price had meant well by her, but she had not understood 
the colossal impossibility of Mary’s ever leading the life 
for which she had been destined. 

“ I should a-died if I’d a-stopped there,” Mary 
thought to herself passionately. 

At the Square she got out and changed into an 
Upper Parkestone car. There was no fear, no mis- 
giving in her now, only a riotous relief. Even Adam 
receded into the background for the time. Arrived at 
Constitution Hill she asked her way, and had to retrace 
road she had already covered in the car, then turn down 
towards the long valley that runs into Bournemouth by 
way of a mean street of miserable brick houses outside 
which tattered women gossiped. There was a waste 
boggy patch between the two hills, crossed here and 
there by half-made roads, blotted here and there by 
rubbish heaps, flanked on either side by freshly built 
houses foredoomed to be slums. But in the middle of 
this dreary wilderness were a few huts, some dozen 
caravans, from whose chimneys smoke went up here and 
there, and a ragged tent or two. There was a patch 
of gorse, too, and some bog-myrtle where Mary, ap- 
proaching the place unwittingly from the wrong side, 
had to jump a stream in which a rusty kettle was 
floating. 

It was a borderland, a pitiful strip of dingy desert 
within the sordid precincts of civilisation. The town 
already swallowed it, or rather, held it engorged. In 
the red-brick cottages on either side dwelt folk who 
were neither gypsy nor peasant ; half-breed people, half 
tramp, half scamp, polluted with town life, with wilder 
blood in their veins, the despair of the curates who 
thought it their business to visit and minister to them. 

Mary went towards the nearest caravan and asked a 


ALLWARD 


293 


filthy child with black hair and eyes like brown velvet 
where Julia White lived. The child pointed her out 
a van at a little distance. It was set beside a zinc 
hut, in front of which a small garden blossomed. Mary 
picked her way across to it, and the small child, sharp 
as a ferret, preceded her and shouted that a gal wanted 
to see Mrs. White. The door of the hut was already 
open, and a handsome haggard young woman looked 
out, a baby at her half-bared breast. 

“ Who is it? ” she began, and then burst out with, 
“ Lord bless us and save us, it’s Mary James ! Come 
in, come in and sit down. Well, yer’s a bit of bokkt ! 
I didn’t dar to go to Barnmouth to-day because I come 
over so funny this marning, and if I’d a-gone I’d 
a-missed you ! Dear Lord ! ” 

44 Isn’t you well, then? ” asked Mary. 

44 It’s the chavis, Mary, my dear. They comes so 
fast they takes the life out o’ you. Six I’ve had in 
five year, one at the burk and the other in the pur, 
and hawkin’ flowers all day, and then yer mush wonders 
why you ain’t what you used to be! Gawd! what a 
life!” 

At her request Mary came in and sat within the hut 
on a packing-case covered with dirty cretonne. A 
fire in an iron receptacle such as night workmen use 
stood in one corner, and over it a kettle suspended by 
an iron stake driven into the ground gypsy fashion. 

Three small children, grimy and pretty, sat on the 
earthen floor, and were chased outside by their mother 
who declared she never had no peace, not a minnit, all 
day long and all night long. 

44 And what’s bro’t you yer? ” Mary was asked at 
last, when the wailing of the baby deprived momentarily 
of its solace was stopped by a renewal of the same. 

Mary explained that she had run away from service 


294 


ALLWARD 


in Bournemouth. She made no mention of the reason 
which had induced her to enter such a life. 

44 Well, I don’t blame you neither,” said the young 
mother reflectively, hugging her greedy bundle. 44 No, 
I can’t say as I does. It’s no life for us, bro’t up like 
we’d a-bin. Marriage is ’ard, but you can chinger with 
your man even if he beats you, and knock about the 
chavis if you feels like it. But in service, no matter 
what you feels, it’s 4 Yes, m’m,’ and 4 No, m’m,’ and all 
that. And never a drop o’ beer. It’s no life for us. 
Whatever made you go and do it for? ” 

44 Miss Price, a raunie what lives up in Tharneyhill, 
come for me and took me,” said Mary. 

44 Well, you, was a dinn to let her. What you goin’ 
to do now ? ” 

44 I dunno,” Mary replied. 44 1 darn’t goo back to 
my dad.” 

44 You’d best bide yer a bit, till the strawberry season 
comes and then go up country along with the rest of us. 
You ’elp me with the chavis and I’ll feed yer all right. 
Besides, if you got your licence for hawkin’ in Christ- 
church you could go from yer just easy as from 
Tharneyhill. My mush ’ll not mind your biding with 
us. Oh, lordy, lordy ! my yed ! it do ache crool ! there 
was a weddin’ yesterday, and the dancing that went 
on, all the gals and boys ! it was a time, I can tell you. 
But the levina we a-peed! I tell you half of ’em 
was drunk the time we’d finished, and some of ’em 
is sleepin’ it off now. I can’t carry the drink like 
what I used to, the second pint does for me, and this 
marning I’ve a yed on fire, and the tikno (baby) yer 
cryin’ half the night till his dad said he’d brain us 
all!” 

44 Who was married?” Mary asked. 

44 A gal what lives up there on the hill, name of 


ALLWARD 


295 


Stace, father’s got steam-harses. Come to think of it, 
you know Alf Stace, don’t you? He was a-talkin’ of 
you yesterday when he got free-spoken with the levina. 
Well, this Stace gal, Vi’let they calls her, is marryin’ 
a man name of Miles — rags and bones and bottles and 
that, doin’ well he is.” 

Mary listened half-bewildered by her cousin’s talk. 
The gypsies who haunt the town are very different 
from those who live in the forest. They are not so 
clean, a good deal more sophisticated and less sober. 
And yet, thanks to their blood, the men and women 
rarely coarsen. Julia had still a beautiful skin and 
black-fringed eyes of an exquisite greenish-grey. The 
old women never degenerate into drink-sodden fat like 
the slum-women. 

“Where’s Alf now?” asked Mary. She felt as 
though she would be almost glad to see her admirer, 
just because he was associated with familiar things. 

“ Over at his dad’s. He’s flush just now. Made a 
nice little heap of vongar fightin’. When he’s trainin’ 
not a drop does he touch. They say he’ll be took up 
on the ’alls in London next. There was a man from 
London what come to watch him fight at a pictsher 
palace darn Pokesdarn. Dordi ! he can use his morleys ! 
You remember old Daniel Lee? Noah’s father, what 
lived to be a hundred? He used to be a proper kooren- 
gro in his time, I’ve heard my dad say. He’d ’a’ stood 
up to Alf, I warr’nt. I just remembers him, a great 
hairy gairo he was, as kaulo as that dress of yourn, 
and with thick white hairs all over his chest; higher 
nor that door-post by half a foot.” 

At this point the kettle boiled over and Julia began 
to prepare a midday meal of bread-and-cheese and tea. 
Her man was out and wouldn’t be back till evening, so 
that the round meal was to be eaten then. 


296 


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Mary ate heartily and so did the children, readmitted 
into the hut. The question of her night-quarters was 
brought up, and Mary begged for a few sacks and rods 
so that she might make herself a tent. That was the 
form of habitation that instinct taught her to like best. 
In a tent, with a blanket to cover her, she would feel 
safety and independence. In the end she had her way 
and a small plot of rising ground selected, she erected 
her poor little shelter in spite of the rusty tins and 
rubbish lying about and the difficulties of such a site. 

The new hat she wore, at her cousin’s advice, she took 
up to an old-clothes shop and sold for two shillings. The 
dress fetched ten. With a few shillings of that she 
bought a battered straw of less aggressive respectability 
and a second-hand blouse and skirt ; the rest of the money 
was tied up in a kerchief after a few necessary pur- 
chases had been made. But the Mary of the bright 
beads and golden earrings was no more, for her trinkets 
lay in her box at “ Windermere,” and never would she 
dare to fetch them. She also pawned her new coat ; she 
would need ready money and could easily redeem it when 
she had earned a little. She had wild notions of eventu- 
ally sending all her new clothes, or rather the monetary 
value of them, back to Miss Price, but that, for the 
present, was impossible. Lyddon’s rings that hung 
round her neck next her skin she would send back, too, 
and ask Miss Price to deliver them. On the morrow 
she could buy her flowers with the rest, visit her old cus- 
tomers in Christchurch, and begin to earn regularly 
again. 

She was coming down the hill from her expedition 
when she met Alf. He looked lethargic after the festi- 
vities of the day before, but brightened when he saw 
her, and began to walk beside her and to pour out a 
string of questions as to why she was there. He had 


ALLWARD 


297 


met her cousin as he was loafing round the bottom, 
and had come up to seek for Mary at once. Mary 
answered his questions as best she could. She thought 
to have been pleased to see Alf, but the sight of him 
reminded her of the Point to Point races and of Adam. 
And somehow her former admirer was utterly distaste- 
ful to her. She saw him now with different eyes. She 
was a different girl. 

He made no reference to their last meeting, neither 
did she. He was content to tell her in a somewhat 
boasting vein of his exploits as a pugilist, of the 
money he had earned, of his opportunity of going to 
London. 

“ What’s ’appened to you ? ” he asked at length. 

“ Lord lumme if you don’t look like a b funeral. 

I tell you what it is, my girl, you’re goin’ to have a 
drink at the pub with me.” 

He seized her arm jocosely, but Mary pulled it 
away. 

“ Don’t you dar to touch me,” she flamed pettishly. 
“ I hates to be mauled and pulled.” 

He recoiled, at first puzzled as to whether it was not 
coquetry, and then his obvious discomfiture was such 
that Mary relented. After all he meant kindness. She 
consented to go to the public-house if he liked, and 
roused herself to be more agreeable to her companion. 
They went into the bar together, and he ordered beer 
for both, as well as for some other rough-looking 
slouchers who greeted them, and were evidently assuag- 
ing dryness caused by the revels of the night before. 
Two women who were unknown to Mary with their 
hawking-baskets were there, healthy strapping crea- 
tures who exchanged jokes with the men and seemed 
by their appearance to be partly of gypsy blood. Alf 
rallied them and was rallied back, and Mary found her- 


298 


ALLWARD 


self being greeted by them friendlily enough. The story 
of her escape had already reached them — news travels 
apace in Heavenly Bottom, and they congratulated her 
roughly on her flight. 

Mary was unused to heavy drinking, yet like most 
gypsy girls, she drank beer when it came her way. 
Drinking is often a form of sociability and of good- 
fellowship, more than of personal desire, and Mary 
drank, first with Alf and then with the women, who 
would have thought her refusal strange. And the 
alcohol mounting to her unaccustomed brain, brought 
two distinct veins of thought into being. Behind all 
the subtle physical comfort that ran with the alcohol 
into her healthy young body, there was a fierce mental 
misery culminating in a don’t-care-ishness, a pitilessly 
logical view of her own foolishness, her own misery, her 
own perversity. 

She exchanged gossip with the women and parried 
Alf’s compliments and jokes almost mechanically. She 
felt her cheeks flushed, she knew that she was laugh- 
ing. And underneath it all her heart was break- 
ing. She would have given half her youth to have been 
able to escape from these people and go into the silence 
of Verely or Ridley, the great woods, and sob her heart 
out at the roots of one of the friendly, impassive beeches, 
so grey, so dignified. 

She refused to drink any more. 

“Lord! You ain’t likely to get motto with that 
drop,” laughed one of the women, but Mary was deter- 
mined, and Alf, seeing it, ceased to press her, and sug- 
gested going outside. 

When the public-house doors had closed behind them 
the cooler air blew on her heated face. Her hair, curl- 
ing slightly, fell over her forehead and into her eyes, 
and she pushed it back impatiently. 


ALLWARD 


299 


66 Where ’re you off to now, Mary ? ” asked Alf . 

“ Down to Julia’s,” she answered shortly. 

“ Don’t clear off yet. There’s lots of time. Her old 
man won’t get back till near seven o’clock. You don’t 
want to go down there amongst all them squalling brats. 
Come and ’ave a blow up there on the top of the ’ill. 
I’d like to stretch my legs.” 

44 Who’s a-stoppin’ you ? ” said Mary. 

44 Don’t be ’ard on me. Come along, too. It won’t 
do you no ’arm. Besides,” and his voice grew thicker, 
“I wants to talk to you. I ain’t seen you since I 
bashed that fancy rye of yourn at Neacroft, and then 
you wouldn’t give me a chanst to talk to you.” 

44 Awright,” she said indifferently, and they began 
to walk together up Constitution Hill, the great trams 
passing them noisily before turning to rush down into 
Parkestone. They left the main road and made their 
wajr to that plateau which used to be the favourite 
resting-place of Turner in the days when the valley 
beneath was innocent of red-brick villas and factory 
chimneys. In spite of the hideousness of the new Parke- 
stone and its tentacle union with Poole, it was still a 
magnificent stretch at their feet, with Poole Harbour 
gleaming like silver as it ran inland and the Isle of 
Purbeck blue and golden beyond. Alf flung himself 
down on the worn grass beside a furze-bush, and Mary 
seated herself beside him. 

44 What’s become of him ? ” Alf asked suddenly, fixing 
unseeing eyes on the shining valley.- 

44 Become o’ who? ” said Mary. 

44 That bloke 1 licked.” 

44 1 dunno,” said Mary. 

44 You ain’t got nothink to do with him now? ” 

44 No,” she answered listlessly, biting a blade of grass 
she had plucked. 


300 ALLWARD 

He was silent, regarding her face with somewhat 
bloodshot eyes. 

“ I don’t wonder the swells runs after you,” he re- 
marked, after a while. “ You’ve got handsome, that’s 
what you’ve got. You’re the handsomest girl as ’ve 
seen anywheres. Don’t do that, I ain’t goin’ to bite 
you. Mary ! do you hear what I says ? ” 

“ A lot of rubbish,” said she, still speaking from a 
mental distance, her main thought scarcely on him. 

“ ’Tisn’t rubbish, it’s Gawd’s truth.” He spoke 
hoarsely again. “ I done nothin’ else but think of your 
pretty face for weeks and weeks, Mary. I could ’ave any 
of the gals round ’ere if I wanted them, but I don’t want 
none of ’em. They ain’t worth lookin’ at after 
you.” 

“ Oh, shut up, Alf,” said Mary. 

“ I ain’t goin’ to shut up,” he said fiercely. “ I want 
you, and I’m goin’ to get you, too. I’m earnin’ good 
money now, and I’m likely to earn a good bit more. 
I’m not goin’ in for your purse-of-gold pug shows, I’m 
flyin’ high. The chap what come from London told 
me there’s no end to the money you can make fightin’ 
now if yer gets yer name up. It’s ’ard work, but ’e 
say I got the right stuff. What’s wrong with you an’ 
me gettin’ married ? ” 

“ I don’t want to get married,” she said, her heart 
thumping irregularly. 

“ Well, I do,” he said. “ And I wants you. Do you 
hear, Mary? And I means to have you.” 

“ You can’t if I won’t,” said she. 

“ Don’t be ’ard on me, Mary. Where’ll you find an- 
other chap what’s the chanst of makin’ money like what 
I got? ” 

He caught hold of her arm and held it firmly. This 
time Mary did not shake him off. The beer had slack- 


ALLWARD 301 

ened her nerves ; she felt indifference rather than resent- 
ment. 

44 Was this the way out? ” her unnaturally clear brain 
asked. Once married legally to Alf and her gypsy mar- 
riage with Adam would be superseded. It was the only 
way in which to sever herself from Adam completely. 
Otherwise, she could never trust herself. She might 
obey her heart-hunger in a mad impulse and seek him 
out and make his ruin, as Miss Price had put it, irrevoca- 
ble. Her gypsy fatalism was strong within her. Was 
this the road that the patrin of Fate indicated? 

44 Mary 1 Mary 1 ” 

His hot breath was on her neck, and she shrank 
involuntarily. 

44 Don’t! ” 

44 Awnswer me ! ” he said urgently. 44 What you got 
to say to it? ” 

44 1 dunno,” she replied irresolutely. 

44 I’ll treat you well, Mary. You shall have di’ments 
on your fingers and fine clothes to your back. I’ll spend 
the money on you when I gets it.” 

She pushed him away forcibly. 

44 If I was to say 4 yes,’ how long ’ud it be afore we 
could get married ? ” she asked in a hard tone. 

44 It ’ud take just over three weeks,” he answered, 
reflecting. 44 There’s the bands to be put up. Oh, 
Mary 

She cut him short. 

44 Can’t it be done no quicker than that? ” 

44 Not unless I was to buy a licence, and that costs lots 
o’ money. And I’d have to get some sticks of furniture.” 

44 1 don’t want to live in no house,” said Mary. 

44 Well, then, in a van. But that ’ll cost money, 
too.” 

44 More’n what you got? ” 


302 


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“ I could raise it,” he answered. 

“ Haven’t you got enough? ” 

“ I could manage the van, with luck, but not a b 

licence.” 

He was puzzled at her. There was something about 
her desire for haste which was incomprehensible in the 
face of her seeming indifference. Then he remembered 
her position; that presumably she had fallen out with 
old Sam her father, and was facing a difficult independ- 
ence. The gypsy people are faithful to family ties. To 
break with one’s people, among these nomads is an act 
of the utmost seriousness. He was not a gypsy, yet 
he had mixed enough with travellers to know that. De- 
graded as was gypsy custom in Heavenly Bottom, it still 
held good in many things. 

He drew closer, put his arm around her. Mary suf- 
fered it in a hell of passivity. It was as if part of her, 
the real living core of her, were dead. Alf kissed her, 
roughly, fervently, beerily. She endured it. 

“ You’re goin’ to take me, then? ” he asked between 
his embraces, forcing her backwards, her face upturned 
to his. 

“ Yes,” she answered wearily, drowsily. 

“You’re not sweet on any one else? ” he urged, his 
little eyes blazing into her own. 

“ There isn’t no one else,” she replied, with dry lips. 

He was holding her closely, but the beer she had 
taken mercifully stupefied her senses. She had none 
of the violent repulsion she would have felt had she 
been perfectly sober. 

“ I’ll put the bands in at once,” he said in his 
passion-thick voice. “ I cawn’t wait for you, d’you 
hear? Gawd ! if you knowed how much I’ve bin thinkin’ 
of you.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


Miss Price had to face a bitterly cold and angry 
Lyddon early the morning after Mary had left the 
camp. The old lady was prepared both for him and 
his anger. He had come to her house the night 
before and had been refused admittance by her orders, 
she had felt too tired to do battle with him then. Now 
she deemed it wiser to see him. 

“ It was Mary James’s own wish to go,” she replied. 
“ She came of her own free will when I told her that 
my friend needed a maid.” 

Lyddon’s face was set in lines of steel. She could 
see that he suffered as any man suffers when baulked 
of happiness close at hand, but she hardened her heart 
against softer impulses. She read his disbelief in 
every word she had uttered in his icy demand for 
Mary’s address. 

“ That I must refuse.” 

“ And I must have it.” 

“ She knows where you are, and if she wishes to let 
you know her whereabouts, she can write herself. 
Mary was at the school and knows how to write a 
letter.” 

“ It may be intercepted.” 

“ It will not. Mary wishes to break with you.” 

“ I don’t believe it.” 

“ That is your egotism. Look at it from her point 
of view. This marriage isn’t going to make her 
happy. She cried when she told me her doubts of it. 
She has tried to free herself before.” 

303 


304 


ALLWARD 


“ She was perfectly happy until you came. Heaven 
knows what lie you told her.” 

“ I told her none.” 

He turned abruptly and left her. She pitied him 
in the moment of success. She was right and he was 
wrong, but she had felt half ashamed of having lived 
up to her principles. She watched from the window 
his tall figure as it went out of the garden gate, his 
head slightly bent, his whole stiffness of gait some- 
how expressive of his fury and hurt. What was he 
after all, but a big, impulsive child, with instincts 
which she respected at the bottom of her soul? She 
never felt more tender over him than at this mo- 
ment. 

Lyddon went off with a big, loose stride into the 
hollies. He wanted to leave the accursed village 
behind him. A cart was tilted up against one of the 
bushes by the roadside, and two ragged nomad 
children were playing with the Jeffs’ yellow, lurcher 
dog beside it. He avoided them, knowing that they 
would hail him in the remembrance of sweets usually 
to be found in his pocket. He made, almost mechanic- 
ally, for the swampy hollow which had been his 
trysting-place with the gypsy. It was sweet now with 
blossoming bog-myrtle and tufts of wax heather, first 
of all the heaths and more beautiful than its succes- 
sors, the bell and the ling. It was murmurous with 
flies and bees, the purple summer was at hand at last. 
He flung himself down in the young bracken miser- 
ably. One phrase of Miss Price’s haunted and 
tormented him. “ She cried when she told me her 
doubts of it.” The words brought him a vivid picture 
of Mary — of Mary with tears in her eyes, their lids a 
little swollen, as she had looked at him that other day 
when she had cried here beside the swamp, the day 


ALLWARD 


305 


of the forest fire. Had he misunderstood her? Had 
he done wrong to refuse to take her at her own terms? 
The Puritan in him, the unfleshliness which he pre- 
served in spite of all his passion for Mary, answered 
no. It was a personal shrinking that he had from 
doing that which would harm her, take advantage of 
her generosity, be less prodigal of the future than 
she. And yet, she had cried and run away. 

He lay so silent that a rabbit passed within two 
feet of his prostrate body. A woodpecker in the 
blackened holm opposite uttered his mocking laughter. 
It was all Mary, it all spoke of Mary. The very smell 
of the crushed bracken, the faint, crisp tinkle of the 
heather in his ears, everything seemed part of her 
presence. No other woman could ever mean that to 
him. And again came the torturing question, had he 
misunderstood her? Had he puzzled her who was all 
simplicity? Had he wounded her? 

He sat up impatiently in the sun-warmed heather. 
The very blueness and jocundity of this May day, the 
cheerful buzzing about him, the perfume of the earth 
seemed to mock him as the woodpecker had done, and 
yet he knew such a thought to be childish. Nature 
is too big to take into account the troubles of any- 
thing which lives and moves within her, because pain 
is part of her being, just as sunlight and frost. Far 
away from some slope of the moor beyond the holms, 
came the peaceful tink-tink of a cow-bell. And then 
he heard the noise of some one or something brushing 
past the hollies in the narrow path behind him. He 
turned abruptly, and saw a face peering at him 
directly above the gorse bush beside which he sat. 

“ Good-morning, my lucky gentleman ! ” 

He knew the untidy black locks, the brown face that 
had remnants of beauty, the uncanny blue eyes as 


306 


ALLWARD 


belonging to Mrs. Cooper, of whom Alius spoke with 
hushed tones as being a witch. 

“ Good-morning,” he returned, none too graciously. 

“ Got a match on you, my lucky gentleman ? ” 

He felt mechanically in his pocket and drew out a 
box. She caught it deftly, sat herself about three feet 
from him in the heather, and drew out her blackened 
clay. Then she felt in the pocket of her torn skirt. 

“ Lord save us, my darling, if I haven’t forgot my 
bit of ’baccy, and the shop two mile off, and me a 
poor woman that’s walked nine miles this morning, 
the Lord hear me, carrying my bit of a tan on my 
blessed back. The moskler down there at Tharneyhill 
met me a-comin’ up the bit of a hill, and haves a 
pleasant word with me, ‘ You your own donkey, 
my dear?’ he says. ‘Yes,’ I says, and 6 that’s better 
nor bein’ some one else’s,’ I says, ‘ if it wasn’t that 
what’s owned gets free food and drink.’ If you’ve 
a bit of ’baccy that you could spare for my old 

swaygler yer ’’ She paused suggestively, and 

Lyddon drew a packet of tobacco from his pocket and 
tossed it to her with scant civility. 

She filled her pipe and leant over to lay the packet 
beside him again. Then she smoked in silence, look- 
ing across the boggy strip at the blackened holm 
beyond. So they sat for a while without speaking. 
Mrs. Cooper looked as contemplative as an Arab. 
Only those with gypsy blood among those of the 
brotherhood of the road have the gift of long and 
quiet silence. A tramp fidgets, while a gypsy can 
spend a whole morning without stirring a limb on 
a sunny day. 

Then she lifted her pipe from her lips. 

“ You campin’ still, my boro rye? ” 

“Yes,” he replied, with a start, for he had almost 


ALLWARD 


307 


forgotten her presence. Her eyes were on him keenly. 

“ There was a young gal with you some while back. 
And there was a young gal, as pretty a one as ever I 
seen — a real Romany girl — what came to the old chovi- 
haun about you. Loved you true she did, the tears 
in her pretty eyes for love of you, my lucky gennle- 
man. Lucky’s every one what’s loved true. There’s 
many high and low, wealthy and poor, that comes 
to me because they calls me a witch, and the luckiest 
I have to give them is true love, high and low, wealthy 
and poor. Lords and ladies have come to me in my 
little tent under the rookers with gold in their pockets 
and di’ments on their hands, and not all the gold and 
di’ments they had was worth more than the little bit 
of true love they wanted all on ’em. I gave her a 
bit of a lil to hang round her neck and keep it safe 
and secret to be a spell between the boro rye and the 
tawni chai. Did you ever set eyes on that bit of paper, 
my darling? ” 

“ Did you give her that ? ” he asked, amused in spite 
of himself. 

44 That I did, my dear, and it was that drawed me 
yer this morning. As I was standing beside my tent 
up there in the rookers, I seen the boro' rye go by. 
4 There’s my fine gennleman,’ I says ; 4 that’s the 
lucky one to be loved true as never one was before. 
Then I seen trouble on you. There was trouble on 
your shoulders. It didn’t take the chovihaun to see 
that. Angry and troubled you was, and your face 
wasn’t the same face of the rye what I seen before. 
And me praying to the Lord every night for you and 
your sweetheart, believe me, darling, even when they 
put me into the klisind, which is the lock-up, because 
they seen me come out of a public where I’d gone to 
buy a bit of ’baccy and they said I was motto. 


308 


ALLWARD 


Motto ! I likes a drop of tatti panni now and agen, 
but they that say they’ve a-seen me in drink lies. 
Every night I’ve prayed for that little kaulie raunie 
of yours, you can believe it or not as you like, my 
dear. Wheer is she? ” 

“ The devil knows,” said Lyddon harshly. 

“ Don’t you go handling his name too free, my dear. 
The Lord knows, and maybe I know too.” 

“ You know where she is? ” 

She put up her smoky hand dramatically as if to 
stop his impetuous question. 

“ I knows a good deal more’n most, my darling. 
They calls me the chovihaun, and that’s another word 
for some one that’s got their eyes and their yers open. 
You be open with me, and I’ll be open with you. You 
be tatcho and I’ll be tatcho. When did you last see 
the young gal? ” 

66 Look here,” said Lyddon, “ I’ll give you five 
pounds if you’ll tell me where she is.” 

“ Keep your money in your pocket till I tells you. 
There’s time to pass before you’ll see her. Unless 
you liked to give me a bar now to go on with,” she 
added, quickly regretting. “ Now you tell me when 
you last seen her and where.” 

He told her, and of the fact that Miss Price had 
induced Mary to go with her. 

“ There, the silly gal, and I warned her there was 
an adder in her path; solemn I told her of it. Adders 
come whar there’s happiness as sure as they’ll come 
out in the sun. And them as is unlucky gets pizened. 
Have you ever camped up in White’s Bushes ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Nor don’t you never, my gennleman. There’s 
no good comes to travellers what sleeps there. And 
do you know why? It was when I was no older than 


ALLWARD 


309 


your little raunie, and as pretty as she was. There 
was a rye come after a gal what was camped there, 
a fine, beautiful gal she was, and dark as Em’ly up 
at Jeffs’, though she was half a gauji. The rye, a 
real rye he was, was crazy about her. Then the adders 
come like they always come. His father and mother 
come and seen her father and mother, and there was 
bad words and bitter words, and the end of it was 
she went and drownded herself down there in the 
pond by the brick kiln, you knows, just below whar 
the Jeffs lives. Yes, that’s true. And the pair on 
’em not more than sixteen. Where are you goin’ to 
atch now for a bit?” 

“ I don’t know,” he said gloomily. “ Not near this 
cursed village, if I can help it. My tent’s up at 
Forest Corner now.” 

“ Well, if you was to bide near here it would be a 
good place to be in. You can kip away from Thamey- 
hill and that if you likes. Why don’t you go up 
Wootton Pits? I’d know where you was, look, and 
it’s a place where travellers stops now and agen. 
It’s about two mile from yer, up against Wootton 
Enclosure. You go and get your tan and that and 
atch there for a bit. It’s just up beyond the marl 
pits. I’ll show you.” 

But Lyddon knew the spot, he and Mary had been 
there once, and she had pointed it out as a camping- 
place she and her father had used. 

“ Well, then, you goo there, and I’ll come and find 
you some time afore long.” 

“ Then you don’t know where Mary is ? ” he 
said. 

“ What I knaws, I kips to myself till it’s time to 
tell. What I don’t knaw, I finds out. You do your 
part and I’ll do mine, like I telled you. And when 


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ALLWARD 


I’ve done mine you gives me what you said, because 
givin’ kips off trouble. And when you needs what I 
can give you, you shall have it, free and generous. 
I got a bit where no one knows, nor never shall know 
while there’s breath in my body, please God, but you 
should have it if you needed it, the Lord knows.” 
Her greedy, uncanny blue eyes watched his hand as 
it went once more into his pocket and drew out a 
shabby purse. The sovereign promised was trans- 
ferred into her hand. She spat on it, and put it in 
her skirt. Then she spat once more over her shoulder 
into the bushes, got up, and after a voluble blessing, 
withdrew as stealthily as she had come. Lyddon 
rubbed his cheek. He could not have told now why 
he had handed the woman the sovereign, the larger 
part of which would certainly be spent in drink, for 
Mrs. Cooper’s intemperance was a byword, unless, as 
Alius had said, she had the gift of charming money 
out of the pocket. Certainly, while he had talked to 
her, she had given him an odd confidence in her 
powers. Now he was convinced that she knew as 
little where Mary was as himself. And yet — he found 
himself setting forth for the long walk across the moor 
to Forest Corner with the fixed determination of 
getting to Wootton Pits. He might as well camp there 
as elsewhere, after all*. 

Charlotte Cooper’s strange mind worked swiftly, 
if not by the same methods as those of most people. 
Miss Price was an enemy of hers, and therefore it 
was with a special pleasure that she could undertake 
anything that meant discomfiture for that lady. Years 
ago Miss Price had, at decent intervals, been available 
for an occasional pound of tea, for an old garment or 
two, or a piece of cold meat. Charlotte, like most 


ALLWARD 


311 


other forest nomads, knew more of the resident gentry 
within a radius of twenty miles than their names. 
She knew to a penny what she was likely to get out 
of them, and to a moment at what intervals it might 
be coaxed out of their pockets. At such a house there 
were credulous servants willing to pay good money for 
a written spell, at such a vicarage the parson was good 
for a loaf of bread, at another big house there 
were usually ladies to “ dukker,” or the men induced 
by a timely witticism to part with the price of a 
drink. 

All this was knowledge of many years’ standing 
with Charlotte, to be added to or modified as each year 
brought changes. But Miss Price had been alienated. 
She had come upon Charlotte once when the latter 
was violently drunk, and terrorising a peaceful villager 
by threats of bewitchment, and from that day forth 
Miss Price’s door and her heart were closed to 
Charlotte. No one regretted it more than Miss Price, 
who found Charlotte amusing, but she reigned a 
queen in Thorn eyhill, and Charlotte had offended too 
grievously to be readmitted to the royal graces. 

But there were means of finding out Miss Price’s 
affairs, and the first instrument to her hand was Joseph 
Jeff, who as gardener and odd- job man had free access 
to the house. Joe Jeff, taciturn and surly as he was, 
would answer a civil question if it was only out of 
dread of her. As she had expected, she found him 
digging in Miss Price’s garden. The hedge which 
divided the vegetable garden from the high-road was 
low, and Charlotte, by raising herself on her toes, 
could just look over it. Joe’s sturdy back was partly 
turned to her, his foot on the spade. 

“ Sst — ♦ — !” said Charlotte cautiously. “Joe!” 

Joe went on digging. He had caught sight of her 


312 ALLWARD 

out of the corner of his eye through the hedge and 
feigned deafness. 

“ Yer, you unlucky old mush, ov akai a minute and 
speak to the chovihaun ! ” she said louder. 

He gazed up with a look of innocence which cun- 
ningly concealed uneasiness. She had called herself a 
witch, and it accented his fear of her. 

“ Oh, ’tis you ! ” he replied sheepishly. 

“ Yes, it’s mandy, you can lay all you’ve got, and 
you’d better shoon to me, or you’ll be uneasy in your 
bed. Them pains a-shootin’ and teasin’ you and 
makin’ you cry out, you remembers. Come close yer 
to the bor.” 

He approached the hedge unwillingly. 

“ It’s about that niece of yourn, Joe Jeff. Do you 
know where she be? ” 

“ No,” said Joe. “ Mary’s along with her dad.” 

“ She isn’t, then. Wheer did Miss Price goo to 
yesterday? ” 

“ I dunno.” 

“ Oh yes, you does. Scratch your sherro, and be 
quick about it ! ” 

“Now I knaws,” said Joe. “ She’d a-put up at the 
Crown in Ringwood because she borrered a buckle 
there, one of ours a-bruk.” 

“ What time did she get back yer? ” 

“It might be eight o’clock,” Joe answered tardily. 

“Do any friends of hers live there?” 

“ I dunno.” 

“ There’s little you do know,” said she contemptu- 
ously. “ Kips your yokkers closed and yer yers stuffed 
like most of the other fools.” 

“ You ain’t a-goin’ to put a spell on Mary,” he said, 
with slow alarm. 

“ Awali, I be,” she returned sarcastically. “ Fine 


ALLWARD 313 

spell I’ll put on her and you too if you don’t look out 
for yer kukri ! ” 1 

Then she went off, well pleased with the obvious 
alarm she had planted in the man’s soul. And her face 
was set towards Ringwood. 

1 Self. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


If you were to ask a gypsy he would tell you that 
Wootton Pits is a good camping-ground. The spot 
where he pitches his tent is, however, past the pits, 
now disused and overgrown, on higher ground not 
far from the high-road and in the shelter of the 
enclosure. Further down, in the heathery bottom 
a fordable stream flows which makes its way through 
copses and undergrowths till it reaches the sea near 
Highcliffe; and with rising ground, wind shelter and 
running water a camp has the elements of comfort. 

Lyddon returned to Forest Corner and saw the rat- 
catcher, to whom he gave the news shortly that he 
had been unable to find Mary. He also bought the 
donkey and cart from him at more than its worth, so 
that he might have means of transport. The rat- 
catcher gave as his opinion that what Mary wanted 
was a hidin’. All women wanted a hidin’ sometimes ; 
it kept ’em in their place. If he catched her she 
should know it, makin’ fools of ’em all like this. But 
Lyddon suspected, with some disgust, that what the 
old man chiefly regretted was the loss of a son-in-law 
from whom he could extract money. He had liked 
Sam hitherto, but now he said good-bye to him with 
relief. 

No other tent or van was pitched at Wootton Pits, 
and for the utter solitude Lyddon was grateful. He 
made coffee that night in the little tent to the hooting 
of owls, and actually saw one fly to a tree visible in 
the starlight a few yards from his camp. He liked the 
soundful silence of the forest night. 

314 


ALLWARD 


315 


Perhaps the morning might bring him Mary. It 
was a groundless hope, but it was ineradicable since 
he had seen Mrs. Cooper. The early morning, silver 
with warm mist, found him unable to sleep. He went 
down to the stream, and stripped himself to wash in 
its shallow water safe of intrusion at such an hour. 
Only the water-wagtails and the early bees were 
abroad, except for a lark or so that had not yet for- 
gotten the songs of spring and were high up in the 
blue air, though their throats did not thrill so ecstatic- 
ally as in the first glorious days of courting. Then 
he wandered into the enclosure, misty and warm with 
the promise of a hot day. A couple of squirrels 
chased each other from branch to branch in the pines 
and firs, and the sweet resinous smell grew stronger 
and stronger as the sun grew more powerful. The 
great undertone of the forest became louder: the hum 
and buzz of insects, the chirping of the grasshoppers, 
the distant call of a cuckoo, the glad excitement and 
fulness of life which must find voice in the prodigal 
warmth of late spring and promise of the summer. 
He returned to his tent, glad with the optimism of 
the morning, scribbled a message to Mary in case 
she might come and find the tent empty, pinned it 
to the tent opening with a thorn, and after he had 
cooked and eaten his breakfast wandered restlessly 
forth again towards Holmesley Enclosure, over the 
moor to the long green stretch of Burley Lawn, and 
thence, following the stream which threads the Lawn 
by a roundabout route to Burley itself, where he pur- 
chased food and one or two dainties that he knew 
Mary would like. He got back to his tent at two 
o’clock to find all as he had left it. The afternoon 
did not bring Mrs. Cooper or Mary, nor the evening 
either. At nightfall he walked over to Thorneyhill 


316 


ALLWARD 


to see if the Jeffs had heard anything of their niece, 
but they had not, and their curiosity and half- 
expressed sympathy irritated him so intensely that 
he quitted them abruptly. The little imp Alius was 
abed, together with the other children, so that he only 
saw Em’ly, her mother and the silent Joe. For Em’ly 
the beautiful he had only aversion, he could not tell 
why. 

As he walked over the cart-track across the moor 
in the dark that was scarcely more than twilight, with 
great dung-beetles booming across his path from time 
to time, he felt an insane belief that he should find 
Mary in his tent, perhaps asleep and tired out, as he 
had found her once before, her muddy boots stretched 
out, her figure slack with fatigue — — But no, she 
would be expecting him, the fire would be alight and 
the wood smoke rising from the tent, supper a-cooking 
in the pot. He almost fancied he smelt the sweet 
acridity of smoke on the night air as he got to the 
marl pits, but when he came within sight of his low 
tent against the dark blue of the night sky, it stood 
out stark and still. The donkey, hobbled in the gypsy 
way, was visible, too, against the sky-line, its ears 
bent sadly, its attitude drooping. The soft chr-rr-rr 
of a nightjar, the chirping of grasshoppers were the 
only sounds that met his ear. The stars were out in 
the scarcely darkened sky, bats flitted here and there 
like black velvet shadows noiselessly in search of 
insect food, but there was absence of human sound 
or movement or light. The tent was empty and dark. 

And if Mary were never to come back, it must 
always be empty and dark at his return each night- 
fall, and even the eternal companionship of the Forest 
could not make up for her absence who was associated 
with its every mood. The very scent of wood smoke 


ALLWARD 


317 


was the scent of her clothes, of her brown, silver- 
ringed hands. All this out-of-door life that he loved 
so passionately was for ever associated with her. 

And then the horror of loneliness that Nature 
inflicts sometimes on those that love her most de- 
scended upon him like a darkness. He felt himself 
human, of the race which had cut itself off from the 
eternal communion which makes herb and beast and 
bird sufficient unto themselves. The curse of civilisa- 
tion which is the fear of isolation came upon him as 
if he had been in a desert island. He wanted Mary, 
and he wanted her physically at that moment of horror, 
more physically than he had ever wanted her before. 
He wanted to hold her, warm and sweet and shy, in 
his arms, to bury his face in her lap, to take her 
close to him, so close that horror would be for ever 
shut out. He wanted to feel her cheek against his, 
to hear her husky, pretty voice telling him that he filled 
her heart right up. 

He lay on the brown blanket and bracken within 
the tent for a while like a big child afraid of the 
dark, and then, controlling himself, rose and fed the 
donkey and kindled a fire. The donkey was alive 
and warm to the touch, the fire had something human 
about it, and his mood of madness passed at last. He 
made himself some supper, and then flung himself down 
to sleep. And the tent was empty but for his big and 
restless body. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


After a few hours of heavy sleep the night fol- 
lowing her promise to Alf, Mary awoke to burning 
hours. 

She could see the scarcely darkened sky through 
a slit at her tent-opening, and hoped for dawn long 
before it arrived, that she might escape from herself 
into the world of action. As soon as the birds began 
to chatter and the day to lighten, her restlessness 
drove her up and out. Heavenly Bottom was not astir 
yet, and although it was light she met scarcely a soul 
as she set off. She made her way up Constitution 
Hill, high above the mist-milky valley and shining 
harbour — the world beneath looked like an opal — and 
then walked down the further side, scarcely caring what 
direction she took. 

She wondered, ceaselessly and throbbingly, if she 
had been mad the evening before. But her reason 
approved of what she had done. It was her instinct 
which sickened. Yes, she had chosen the only way 
to break the tie which now existed between her and 
Adam, and if her flesh shrank from the means, her spirit 
must go bravely on. 

44 There’s lots of gals have married men what they 
didn’t like to touch them,” she thought. 44 They gets 
on all right in the end. But oh, I wishes it wasn’t 
Alf — though he’s a good little chap — — ” 

Again a kind of nausea seized her at the thought of 
his possession of her. She had lived close to the 
realities of life. She had seen women in the throes 
of childbirth, she had watched the youth of girls but 
318 


ALLWARD 


319 


a little older than herself fade in a few years, she had 
witnessed scenes of brutality which robbed marriage 
of its glamour for her. And yet it was the inevitable 
part of every woman; and none who had loved their 
man ever looked back, or thought of looking back. 
Gypsy women, healthy to the core, endure the hard- 
ships their sex is heir to ungrumblingly and preserve 
their ability to smile and their keen enjoyment in life. 
A baby on one hip and a heavy hawking basket on 
the other, a man to work for and children to feed was 
their lot, and they conceived of no other. If it had 
been Adam, Mary too, with the mystery of woman’s 
nature, would have rejoiced in the sacrifice of liberty 
she brought him and the prospect of bearing his 
children in pain and pride. 

But her whole soul rebelled at the thought of the 
sacrifice to be made for a man who was not Adam. 
It sickened her while she steeled herself to it. She 
thought of her marriage in all its naked truth with a 
dreadful fascination. She had in her the dread of 
relinquishing maidenhood inherent in her wild-blooded 
race, the dread which had driven her cousin to hide 
away from the man she loved on her wedding night. 
It was primitive, it was instinctive, it was savage. 
That was why she had covenanted for an immediate 
marriage. She feared her own instinct. 

She had reached the outskirts of Poole, and crossing 
a patch of derelict ground by a brick kiln for the sake 
of escaping the road, found herself in a little sandy 
valley covered with stunted pines which faced the deso- 
late moor between Poole and Broadstone. Few ever 
cross this moor but gypsies, and the green lanes con- 
verging on it which carters used when times were 
otherwise are being discreetly dead-ended by estate 
agents who prefer rights of way to lapse. In time it 


320 


ALLWARD 


will be marked out into building lots, as the town 
spreads itself, and paths worn by centuries of wayfarers, 
will disappear for ever. 

It is as if the melancholy of dissolution were already 
upon it. Even on this May morning, with the early 
sun sending long dewy shadows from the stunted 
pines at its verge, it had a look of death, despite the 
bees buzzing over the heather and the larks singing 
perpetually in the sky overhead. It was a s ad-looking 
country; whole stretches of the hillside were whitened 
by coarse yellowish grass or blackened by fires. Here 
and there solitary and meagre pines broke the monot- 
ony, or patches of yellow moss in watery bottoms still 
steaming with evaporating mist. But the silence and 
the scent of it brought comfort to Mary. She stretched 
herself on the pine-needles at the wood’s edge face 
downwards, and felt the sun warm on her back. There 
was always that much good in life, anyhow: always 
paths to follow, and a sun to warm one, and a wind 
moving in the trees. No marriage could change her 
so that she could not feel the exhilaration of these. She 
told herself this in desperation as one clings to a straw 
of comfort. 

It did not occur to her that she could free Lyddon 
of the gypsy marriage by any other means than that 
she had chosen. Past generations had held the gypsy 
marriage binding enough, and only gypsies who had 
got religion or had higher social pretensions than the 
rest married in church. Now, thanks to Church Army 
missioners and other forces of civilisation, the Church 
marriage was considered more decent, more genteel, 
more binding. The law of the land means little to a 
race which spends life in evading it and respects old 
tribal custom, though tribal custom be all but obsolete. 
Lyddon had once spoken to Aunt Gerania of the 


ALLWARD 


321 


Missioner who made it his duty, armed with silver- 
gilt rings, to seek out the nomads who had not sought 
the blessing of Church or State on their union and 
persuade them into marriage. Aunt Gerania had spat, 
and then remarked — ■ 

“ It pleases he, and does no harm to they.” 

So that the broomstick marriage, unless superseded, 
was a genuine tie to Mary, and she wanted nothing 
to tie Adam to her but their happiest memories of 
each other. She remembered the warm February day 
when they had rested together on the brow of Castle 
Hill up in the dear old Forest after collecting wood, 
and had looked out over the valley and talked of the 
odd feeling that spring brings with it. And the night 
upon which instinct had brought her to him in Verely 
Wood, and they had gone back together across the 
moor, his hand tight on her arm; nothing could rob 
her of that, either. She remembered each moment of 
their companionship as a mortal remembers dealing 
with a god. He was not of her world or her people. 
Yet he had loved her and made her glorious though 
ashamed. She buried her face in the pine-needles. 
Now and here was her parting with him. 

66 1 won’t never think of him again like this,” she 
half whispered to the aromatic, friendly earth; “ s’up 
me Duvvel. Yer am I, goin’ to get married to my 
mush, and still thinkin’ of yer, Adam. Lord! how I 
wants yer ” 

She lay perfectly still, until the sun on her back 
grew hotter, the shadows shorter. She sat up at 
length, and brushed off the ants which had crept 
inquisitively on to her clothing, and got up resolutely. 
When she got to the brick kiln she drew out a packet 
of Woodbines from her bodice, and a box of matches, 
and lit herself a cigarette, dashing away the tears 


322 ALL WARD 

that brimmed over her eyes with a resolute and shabby 
sleeve. 


“ Mandy’s bishered opray the pani 
With my Romany rakli 
Opray along of mandy. 

What a kushti bit of kel 
Mandy will lei 

Along of my Romany rakli ” 1 — 

she hummed, with false gaiety. A sob rose in her 
throat, unbidden, stupidly. 

44 Don’t be a bori fool ! ” she apostrophised her- 
self angrily, and repeated the end of the chorus 
doggedly — 


“ What a kushti bit of kel 
Mandy’ll lei 

Along of my Romany rakli.” 

44 Oo’s that singin’? 99 asked one workman, who had 
just arrived at the kiln, of another. 

44 Can’t you see? One of them gypsy lot down in 
Heavenly Bottom. There she goes, smokin’ like a man. 
I’d like to have the lot of ’em burnt out like emmots t 
A rough lot, they be ! ” 

She went back towards the camp, found the world 
astir at last, and hastened lest she might miss the 
other flower-sellers when they set off* for the nursery 
gardens. In this clear morning light she dreaded 
meeting Alf. Cheerfulness was abroad : there was 
the scrunching of cart-wheels along the road, men 

1 “ I’m to be transported 
With my Romany girl. 

Transported over the water. 

What a spree it will be 
Along with my Romany girl.” 


ALLWARD 


323 


whistling as they went to work, cocks crowing, smoke 
arising from countless chimneys — all the glad noise of 
the world beginning its summer day. 

But her fears were not realised. Alf Stace was still 
abed, and she found herself just in time for the start. 
Julia was sitting on the steps of her van suckling the 
baby ; the pretty White girls, dark, laughing and in 
morning spirits, were munching bread-and-butter with 
her, their baskets beside them, before setting out to 
purchase their wares. Mary was handed a cup of 
long-brewed tea and a piece of bread-and-butter like 
the rest. This morning Julia’s face was flushed with 
health and sleep and was cheerful, while the baby fed 
as if its mother’s milk contented it. In her basket 
were some flowers saved over-night in water, fresh 
enough to pass muster for the day’s market. Julia had 
found an old basket for Mary to use. 

Such a chatter there was among the magpie lot of 
them ! Leah Sanders had chingered with her man 
the night before, and he had taken a stick to her and 
koored her cruel. ( “ And he give her a swell fur 
chochta [cloak] at Easter the last time he koored 
her.”) One girl declared she wouldn’t mind getting 
beaten if her mush was to give her a handsome 
present to make up for it! Hadn’t Mary heard Leah 
hollerin’ ? 

Mary was glad that the women knew nothing yet 
of her promise to Alf. She was rallied about the 
time she had spent with him on the hill, however, 
but she managed to parry questions and chaff with 
ease. 

Then the healthy, laughing throng shouldered their 
baskets and set off up the hill towards the tramway, 
Julia’s baby settling itself to sleep in her shawl. The 
conductor greeted them jocosely, and was ready for 


ALLWARD 


324 

their chaff ; he knew most of them by name and all of 
them by sight. Mary, too, felt lighter-hearted. The 
meeting with Alf that she had dreaded was put off 
again by some hours, and the reprieve was more than 
she had hoped. 


CHAPTER XXV 


Alf Stace walked slowly into Heavenly Bottom at 
seven o’clock, only to find that Mary had gone off 
with the flower-sellers. In the soberer hours of the 
morning the little pugilist’s brain, unclouded by drink 
and clarified by his passion for Mary, had begun to 
work in a manner which had not tended to fill him with 
the triumph of the successful wooer. There had been 
something queer about Mary’s behaviour the previous 
evening, which was not to be accounted for by her 
quarrel with her father alone. After her maddening in- 
difference to him, her sudden acceptance of him and her 
eagerness for an early wedding was enough to set any 
man’s jealous suspicion aflame. Doubts began to rankle 
in his mind. Was there a sinister and pressing reason 
for her desire to be married at once? he asked himself, 
with deepening gloom. It would not be the first time 
that a girl had snatched at one suitor to shield 
herself from the consequences of her love for another 
man. His face and forehead flushed, and his fists 
clenched at the evil suggestion. Then he wiped away 
the sweat of his thought from his brow, in the 
resolution to tell Mary outright of his suspicions, so 
that she might herself dispel them. And yet — what 
woman, and above all of gypsy blood, ever told the 
truth when it was vital to her to lie? Last night, she 
had said there was no other man. She might or might 
not have been speaking the truth. 

He remembered Lyddon with suspicion, and the talk 
that he had gathered about him and Mary. He would 
let Mary know that he was not to be befooled. He had 
325 


S 26 


ALLWARD 


no mind to father a brat that was not his own. Yet — 
what evidence had he? Only her strange haste to be 

married. She might be straight enough — and yet 

He loitered miserably about in the sunshine, unable 
to solve his own doubts and fears. Then he cursed 
himself for a fool. His only means of finding out would 
be to find some of the Thomeyhill people and question 
them as to Mary’s recent doings and dealings. He 
knew that some of the Thorneyhill women came as far 
as Boscombe to sell their flowers, he knew the public- 
house where they usually stopped for a midday pint 
of beer ; maybe if he went that way he might encounter 
one of them and hear the truth, as far as truth is ever 
to be got from a didakai, who can never give a straight 
answer to a straight question. 

On the impulse of the moment he set off towards 
Bournemouth, along the valley which skirts Talbot 
Woods and ends in the Gardens after its ragged be- 
ginning in Heavenly Bottom. He had the instincts of 
the bully and rough, but he prided himself on cunning 
and knowledge of the world. It was a better plan to 
question the gypsy girls from Thorneyhill than to ask 
Mary, he thought with increasing self-satisfaction as 
he walked along, with a trace of swagger that came 
of his prize-fighting stock, his cap pushed back from 
his hair, his neck-tie fastened rakishly. 

He came at last into the Square, where the pros- 
perous heart of the watering-place beat. Pretty girls 
of the well-dressed class, young men with the fashion- 
able stoop of the year, pleasant-faced parsons, well- 
to-do old ladies with their companions : all the world 
to whom middle-class comfort is a matter-of-course, 
crowded the pavements, or got in and out of the trams. 
Alf gazed at them with the vague hatred of his kind 
for 44 swells,” and while pausing somewhat aimlessly 


ALLWARD 


m 


on the kerb he became aware of an altercation between 
a policeman and a woman whose earrings and empty 
basket proclaimed her a hawker. To judge by the 
amused expression of the few idlers who were looking 
on, the policeman was getting the worst of the argu- 
ment. Alf, with the instinct of the loafer, went up to 
the little group, but it melted as he approached it; 
the woman settled her shabby hat, and the policeman, 
with an air of lofty detachment, returned to his post 
by the lamp-post. Finding herself facing Alf, the 
woman addressed him. 

“ Moving me on when I wasn’t standing still, and 
askin’ me for me licence when I ’adn’t nothing in my 
basket to sell! What I puts in my basket or what I 
takes out of it’s nothin’ to ’im. I was on my way, I 
telled him, to buy a pretty little spring chicken and a 
nice bottle of stout to take back with me, and invited 
him to come to supper with me to-night, to have a 
slice off the breast of the dear little bird; but, Lord 
love us, the mush was too proud to haccept of the poor 
gypsy-woman’s invitation ! ” 

Alf, the only being who still stood to listen to her 
peroration, stared at her lean and sunburnt face with 
contemptuous familiarity. 

“ Why, it’s old Mother Cooper ! ” 

She looked at him keenly. 

“ Cooper’s my name, and Mrs. before it, for those 
who speak civil and genteel, young man. Ah, I knows 
you ! Dordi, dordi ! You’re the mush what got fightin’ 
with the gaujo rye up at Neacroft races. I yeerd all 
about it from they Jeff gals.” 

“Wish I’d done for him,” replied the young man 
sulkily. 

She paused a moment beside him, her light-blue eyes 
full of sudden thought and cunning. 


328 


ALLWARD 


44 Come into the gardens a minute,” she said con- 
fidentially. 44 Now I thinks of it, I wanted to meet 
you.” She laid a brown hand on his arm. 44 I can’t 
stand talkin’ yer, or the raffally old moskler ’ll lei me.” 

44 What you want? ” said he rudely. 

44 Come on, my dear, I’ve something pertickler to 
say to you.” 

He began to follow her reluctantly, but under the 
spell of her mysterious voice and manner. 

44 1 can see in your mind, back of them eyes of yours, 
and what I sees is trouble,” she went on, keeping her 
magnetic gaze fixed on his lowering face. 44 You’ve 
been vexed in your mind about some one I could tell 
you something of if I had the wish to, my dear.” 

44 1 ain’t goin’ to give you nothin’ for your rubbish,” 
said he suspiciously, hanging back. 

She forced him forward, and against his own will 
he sat down beside her on one of the municipal seats. 

44 Keep your money for them as asks for it,” she 
said pleasantly. 

Then she cast a furtive glance around the garden. 
No one was visible, except an unemotional nurse-maid 
in uniform on the next seat, an old gentleman pursuing 
his leisurely way along the path, and some children 
playing noisily in the grass. 

44 Rubbish, you calls it ! Well, I’m not goin’ to give 
you any witchcraft now, though there’s things I could 
tell you as would astonish you, my dear, as it astonishes 
the gentlefolks as asks me to their houses on purpose to 
hear what I got to say. 4 Ask Charlotte,’ they says, 
and puts their hands into their pockets and draws out 
the money. Ladies and lords have come to me, no 
less. But to yourself I say 4 No, that’s not good enough 
for him, truth and fact is what he wants.’ You treat 
me tatcho, and I’ll treat you tatcho.” 


ALLWARD 329 

“ Yer, what d’you want to tell me?” he asked 
truculently. 

She dropped her mincing manner, and spoke in a 
low voice. 

“You don’t like that blessed gaujo we was speakin’ 
of,” she said. “ He was after the gal you fancied for 
yerself. You needn’t look at me like that, my dear, 
they Jeff gals telled me all about it, and what 
happened at Neacroft the day you and him fought up 
there.” 

“ What’s that to you? ” he growled. “ I knocked his 
dirty ’ead for him, and ’ud do it again if I was to 
come acrost him.” 

“ It’s nothin’ to me,” she replied. “ Only, though 
you ain’t a traveller, you bin about with travellers and 
knows our ways. That’s why I’m takin’ the trouble to 
be sittin’ yer with you, and a-tellin’ you somethin’ you’ll 
like to hear.” 

“ You can tell me somethin’ I wants to ’ear if you 
likes,” said Alf brutally. “ What do they say about 
’im and Mary James up at Thorneyhill? ” 

“ Ain’t you lived long enough yet to know that what 
they says is mostly lies?” she answered scornfully. 
“ What they says ain’t worth much, I goes by what 
I knows.” 

“What do you know?” he asked, moistening his 
heavy lips with his tongue to ease their dryness. 

“ That — * — ” she paused, and then stated the truth 
in a form complimentary to her hearer, “ that he wanted 
to marry her, and she run off and give him the slip.” 

“ He wanted to marry her? ” he repeated incred- 
ulously. 

“ Yes, my dear, I give you God’s oath upon it. 
Money and di’ments he had to give her, but off she 
went, showed him the heel of her boots, and never 


330 


ALLWARD 


so much as a thank you.” Mrs. Cooper’s dramatic 
gesture completed her picture. 

He drank in the flattery, and the balm stole into 
his soul. 

“ So that was why she come off yer,” he exclaimed 
slowly. 

“You seen her, then?” asked Charlotte. Her pulse 
quickened, but she was careful not to betray her 
eagerness. 

“ She’s up along with Julia White at Heavenly 
Bottom.” 

Charlotte concealed her jubilation. Here was luck 
such as she had not hoped for, though she had a 
strong belief in her own lucky instincts. Her only 
object in talking to Alf, had been to set him watching 
for Mary in Bournemouth; but by a piece of unex- 
ampled good fortune, she had hit instead upon the very 
piece of information she was seeking for. She had a 
superstitious belief in herself, and for the moment she 
verily believed that her own occult powers had led her 
to address Alf, and so learn what she had wished. The 
money Lyddon had promised her seemed to materialise 
before her eyes. For Alf and his wishes she cared not 
a jot. 

She questioned him adroitly, and drew out of him 
the story of Mary’s flight from servitude, which tickled 
her immensely. It delighted her to think of the dis- 
may of Miss Price when she should hear of it. Her 
victim, drawn on by sympathy and flattery, went on to 
tell her the more serious news that he was going to put 
the banns up for Mary and himself. 

She congratulated him warmly, and gave him the 
impression that she thought Mary a lucky girl. It 
ended in a drink at a public-house and in mutual satis- 
faction. Mrs. Cooper parted from him with a volu- 


ALLWARD 


331 


bility increased by the glow induced by spirits and 
water, but she was careful not to exceed the bounds 
of sobriety, for she needed all her senses if she were 
to earn the five pounds that had been promised to her. 
Her next move must be to see Mary, and to interview 
her at all costs before she met Alf again. She shoul- 
dered her basket and made her way up the sunny street 
full of indecision, and trusting in her strange brain to 
one of those inspired impulses which so often stood her 
in good stead in her haphazard life of villainy. 

She had long ago ceased to wonder at the strange 
vagaries of human nature, or she would have found 
food for astonishment in Mary’s throwing over Lyd- 
don for Alf. Mary loved Lyddon — and ran from him; 
Lyddon was the better match — yet she had promised to 
marry Alf. There seemed no possible reason for such 
behaviour, but Mrs. Cooper subsisted on her wits and 
her knowledge of the kinks and weaknesses of which 
mortal man is composed, and she knew that reason 
constitutes a negligible factor in a love-affair like 
Mary’s. As for Alf, she dismissed him contemptuously 
enough as a fool, and an uncivil fool at that. Mrs. 
Cooper was as great a stickler for manners as the 
veriest duchess, and she never forgot or forgave an 
incivility, just as she never forgot those who treated 
her courteously. Lyddon, apart from his sovereigns, 
would have been in her favour for that alone. Though, 
with her, gratitude might be said to take the literal 
form of a lively sense of favours to come, it was based 
on genuine warmth of feeling. This old vagabond, 
whose hand was against even her own kind, had an 
intense and bitter pride which kept her self-respecting 
and dignified. Charlotte Cooper had a wholesome con- 
tempt for the majority of mankind, and would have 
agreed with Carlyle that Great Britain was mainly 


332 


ALLWARD 


populated with fools. If their folly was profitable to 
her, and enabled her to live in the manner in which she 
had elected to live, so much the better. 

She debated a little within herself as to whether 
she should seek Mary out on her rounds at Christ- 
church. But it was problematic as to whether she 
would find her, and she had already walked many miles. 
She decided to loiter about the gardens and sea-front 
till the afternoon, and then go to Heavenly Bottom. 
There was no hurry, her granddaughter would guard 
the little tent in the hollies until she returned to it. 
She disliked the town heartily, and never came into it 
unless she were forced. There were better ways of 
living than hawking flowers and pegs about the streets : 
earning five pounds by your wits, for example ! 


CHAPTER XXVI 


The third morning since Mary’s disappearance dawned 
to the accompaniment of a fine rain and a cold wind. 
May had played at June long enough; now she reverted 
to April. During the night a sea-mist had crept up 
from the coast and spread inland, and in the morning 
the mist turned into a drizzle of rain. Somehow Lyd- 
don did not feel his nerves at so tense a pitch as he 
had done the day before. The grey light, the rain 
soft as a caress, the silver silence which replaced the 
hum and buzz of the golden yesterday, was more in 
accord with his mood. The donkey stood under the 
shelter of the enclosure, its hide shaggy and wet, its 
ears drooping, the pines and firs and spruces of the 
enclosure stood motionless in the grey mist of rain, the 
colour of the moor beyond the marl pits had disap- 
peared. There was no blue distance, only the soft 
horizon of stooping clouds, breast to breast with the 
heather. 

Lyddon had grown to love the rain since he had lived 
the forest life, above all when it was in this gentle 
humour. Indeed, rain is more depressing to the house- 
dweller than to the tent-dweller. Provided that heavy 
rainfalls do not flood him out — and a gypsy chooses his 
ground too cleverly for that to happen often — there is 
little hardship in the rain. To wet clothes and wet feet 
he is inured, rheumatism does not threaten his healthy 
body, colds are unknown to him. 

So after Lyddon had cut enough furze tops and 
chopped them with his spade for the donkey, he stayed 
within his tent, watching the heavy smoke curl up from 
333 


334 


ALLWARD 


the damp wood in his fire-tray and that of his own 
pipe, possessed by a quiescence of spirit born of the 
grey enchantment of the rain. 

But his heart leapt suddenly when he saw Alius 
peering in at the opening of his tent. He had left 
a request with the Jeffs to bring him word if they heard 
anything of Mary. Yet Alius, her untidy hair plas- 
tered close to her strange little face by the damp, had 
no appearance of being more than a casual visitor. 

“ Hullo,” said she succinctly. 

“ Hullo,” he answered. “ Come in.” 

She did so, pushed a damp strand of hair out of her 
eyes, and settled herself on the sugar-box. 

“ Well? ” said he. 

“ Well — — ” echoed Alius. 

He waited for her to proceed. She exhumed a dirty 
bag of acid-drops from a pocket in her skirt, untwisted 
its mouth, and held it out to Lyddon in silence. He 
refused the gift with thanks. 

“Did your mother send you? ” he asked. 

“ No,” replied Alius. “ I corned by myself, because 
I wanted to see yer.” 

His flicker of hope was extinguished. There was 
a brief silence, during which Alius could be heard suck- 
ing an acid-drop meditatively. 

“ Do you know who give me them sweets ? ” she said 
hoarsely and dramatically. 

“ No.” 

“ Mary did.” 

“ Mary ? 99 

She nodded. “ Yes. An’ she give me somethin’ for 
you, and said give you her love.” With aggravating 
deliberation the child put her hand again into her skirt 
and drew out a small packet, sticky from contact with 
the sweets. 


ALLWARD 


335 


He opened it quickly, and saw the two rings he had 
given Mary. He stared at them a moment without 
speaking, then thrust them into his pocket and gripped 
Allus’s arm. 

“Where did you see her?” 

“ Leggo,” said Alius, wriggling, 44 you’re squeezin’ 
my arm! I seen her yesterday. Mother and Em’ly 
got a lift in Abram Pidgeley’s cart to Christchurch, 
and he says to me, 4 Come along too, Alius,’ he says, 
so I ridded up beyind, and we went into Christchurch.” 

44 Go on,” said he impatiently, as Alius paused. 

44 I am a-goin’ on. Em’ly went on into Southbourne, 
and mother took me along with her. She was callin’ 
at one of them ’ouses up against the railway bridge — 
you knows — when I seen Mary, with a basket of flowers 
on her arm, cornin’ along the street.” 

44 With a basket of flowers on her arm ! ” he repeated 
incredulously. 44 Why, she’s in service.” 

44 No, she ain’t, then. She’s hawkin’.” 

44 How do you know? ” 

“ She telled me. She said, 4 Come round the earner 
yer, quick, Alius, and don’t tell yer mam ye’ve seen me. 
Come along sharp,’ she says ; 4 I’ve somethin’ to give 
you.’ ” 

She paused again purposely, enjoying her listener’s 
impatience. 

“ Oh, get on with it, you little devil ! ” 

44 She telled me she’d runned off from the place where 
she was. And she said she was livin’ up ag’in Boumes- 
mouth now, and that she was goin’ to get married. She 
said, give you her love, and she did them fawnies up 
in a piece of paper and tied them, and said put them 
in my putsy, and she give me threepence. That’s what 
I got them acid-drops with.” 

He stared at her a moment in silence, and Alius was 


336 


ALLWARD 


somewhat disappointed with the result of her mission. 

“ Is that all she said? ” he asked at length. 

“ She made me promise on my dad’s hand I 
wouldn’t say nothin’ to no one but you as I’d a-seen 
her.” 

His pipe had gone out. He tapped the ashes into 
the tray, and slowly refilled it. 

“ How was she looking? ” 

“ Same’s she always looks,” said Alius stolidly. 
“ She hadn’t no beads on nor earrings, though. 
P’raps she’ve pawned ’em. She began to cry when she 
done up them rings, and then she laughed too.” 

“ Whom is she going to marry ? ” said he, examining 
his unlit pipe. 

“ She didn’t say nobody. I shouldn’t be surprised if 
’twas Alf Stace. He’s always bin at her to marry him, 
look, an’ he lives somewheres up against Bournes- 
mouth,” 

“ Where?” 

“ I dunno.” 

“ Can’t you find out? ” 

“ I’ll try,” she said doubtfully. 

“Will you see Mary again?” 

“ I don’t go in to Christchurch most days, and 
Mary’ll keep clear of mother if she don’t want her to 
know wheer she is.” 

He sat silent. 

“ I thinks she koms you best,” said Alius dispassion- 
ately. 

“What makes you think that?” he said bitterly, 
almost forgetting that he was talking to a child. “ She 
probably prefers Stace, if she is marrying him.” 

“ She don’t think nothin’ of Alf. If he tried to kiss 
her, she delled him proper.” 

“ But she’s marrying him.” 


ALLWARD 


337 

^ “ She’s a fool,” said Alius, plainly stating a fact. 
“ Look yer, Adam, you got a bit of bread or some- 
think P ” 

He opened his box of stores, and cut her a slice of 
cake. He had bought it with other dainties yesterday 
in Burley, so as to be prepared for Mary’s return. 

“ I likes all this yer lemon-peel,” said Alius appre- 
ciatively. 

“ Is she selling flowers every day in Christchurch ? ” 
he asked. 

“ I dunno,” said Alius. “ She’ve her reg’lar cus- 
tomers there.” 

“ Do you know who they are ? ” 

She shook her head, her mouth full of cake. 

Yet the idea of hunting her down in Christchurch 
was repellent to him. The figure of her lover had come 
between them. Was this to be the end of his little 
tragi-comedy in the Forest? 

“ Never you keer, Adam,” said Alius, her great 
black eyes peering over the cake from beneath her rain- 
wet elf-locks. “ Theer’s other gals about, look, Adam. 
Why can’t I come along and cook and that for you? 
I’d do it for nothin’, and you needn’t marry me, be- 
cause I’m not growed up. I can cook all right ; stoo 
anything in the old kavvi, I can.” 

“ You’d eat me out of the tent,” he said, rousing 
himself to chaff her. 

“ No, I wouldn’t, then. And I’d get all your sticks 
for you, and wash yer things, and chop the fuzz-tops 
for the old myla, and see the pigs didn’t come in after 
yer things nor nobody take nothin’. I could do all 
that like what Mary could.” 

“ And what would your mother say? ” 

“ She’d not keer. There’s too many of us chavis as 
it is.” 


338 ALLWARD 

He looked at the little wild creature with a look of 
sudden affection. 

“ You’re a little brick, Alius.” 

“ I kin read and write, too.” 

“And jump over a stick,” he added teasingly. 

“ Now you’re savvin’ at me, Adam,” she said, of- 
fended. “Sstl” She put up a finger warningly and 
listened, intent as a young doe with pricked ears. 

“ What is it? ” 

“Some one’s a-coming,” she said. “A gaujo’s 
a- wellin’.” 

“ How do you know it’s a gau j o ? ” 

“ Because they walks different,” said Alius. She got 
up, went to the opening of the tent, thrust her head 
out, and then turned back, a grimy, sunburnt finger laid 
against her lips. 

“ It’s a raunie,” she whispered hoarsely. 

“ What sort of a lady? ” 

“ Can’t see her face; she’ve got a breller. She ain’t 
very big. Yes, my lady ! ” The latter part of her re- 
marks was aloud in reply to an indistinct voice outside. 

“ I’m not here,” said Lyddon to the child. 

“ You should a-spoke before. I just said you was. 
Well, I’ll be jailin’.” 

“ Come and see me this evening,” said Lyddon 
hurriedly. 

“ Awright,” said Alius indifferently, and, shaking 
and stretching her lean little body as a dog shakes off 
wet or cramp, she left him. 

Lyddon pushed aside the flap and came out. He 
had guessed his visitor to be Eleanor. 

“ How did you come? ” he said, with an attempt to 
be gracious. 

“ I asked one of the Jeffs. Miss Price said they 
would be likely to know. One of the sons brought 


ALLWARD 339 

me as far as the claypits, and then I saw the tent 
and came on by myself. May I come in ? ” 

44 Of course.” 

She seated herself on the soap-box that Alius had 
vacated, her head brushing the low roof. 

44 1 had to come and tell you about Mary,” she said, 
coming to her point directly. 

He waited. 

44 Miss Price wrote and told me that she had got her 
a situation, and that you did not know where she 
was.” 

44 Well? ” he said, drawing his big knees upward 
with a movement that was at once defiant and 
awkward. 

44 1 thought it a very wrong thing to do,” said 
Eleanor simply. 44 So I came over this morning in 
the motor — getting horribly wet, too ! — and went to 
see her. She’s no right to keep Mary’s address from 
you. So I got it. You see, Dick, she is a regular old 
Tory, and she is all against mixed marriages. She 
thought she was doing you both a service against your 
wills. Here is the address — I’ve written it down.” 

She held out one of her own cards, upon the back 
of which something was scribbled. 

He was uncomfortably moved by gratitude. 44 1 say, 
Eleanor,” he began, 44 you are ” 

44 No, I am not,” she said. 44 1 felt partly respon- 
sible.” 

44 Responsible ? ” 

44 Yes,” said Eleanor, with a quiver going over her 
pretty, sensitive face, the lines beneath her eyes accen- 
tuated. She plunged hurriedly into a partly truthful 
explanation. 44 You see, Dick, she knew about the let- 
ters. She knew the truth of it, of course — I told her ; 
but I suppose she imagined we were going to knuckle 


340 


ALLWARD 


under to people’s opinion and marry each other. It 
didn’t seem unlikely to outsiders, I suppose.” 

“And how about Rochester?” he burst out hotly, 
and then stopped, ashamed of himself for having stated 
the case baldly. 

“ The world at large doesn’t know about Guy. They 
only know the version which Marjorie whispered every- 
where, and got sympathy for.” 

He made an angry movement. 

“ It would have been better if the damned letters had 
been threshed out in court, after all.” 

“ Yes,” she said ironically. “ To have exonerated 
you — — It was my reputation that was at stake.” 

“And that suffered in spite of all,” he replied bit- 
terly, “ thanks to your and Marjorie’s friends.” 

“ We aren’t here to discuss my affairs or poor Mar- 
jorie’s,” she said. “It’s about Mary.” 

He was aware of the subtle reproach. Eleanor had 
a way of putting him into her debt, of making him 
feel as if he owed her — what? It was a question which 
he always put from him. 

“ Your information about Mary comes too late,” he 
said. “ Mary left the woman she went to. Didn’t 
Miss Price tell you that? She was perfectly safe in 
giving the address, as Mary isn’t there.” 

“ How do you know ? ” asked Eleanor. “ Is she — 
here ? ” 

“ I don’t know where she is. She was seen in 
Christchurch, hawking, by a gypsy girl who brought 
me a message. She is going to be married.” 

“Mary — married?” she echoed blankly. “To 
whom ? ” 

“ I don’t know — for certain.” 

“ A man — of her own class ? ” asked Eleanor de- 
liberately. 


ALLWARD 


341 


“ A man — if it is he — immeasurably inferior to 
her.” 

Eleanor was silent a moment, and then put out her 
ungloved hand and touched his sleeve in an impulsive 
way that made a claim on their long familiarity. 

44 Dear old Dick ! I’m so sorry ! ” 

He was resentful of sympathy, but Eleanor’s grey- 
green eyes, misted over with tears, and her voice, full 
of emotion, quenched his surliness. 

44 Perhaps,” said Eleanor, after a moment, 44 she will 
be happier so — in the long run.” 

44 1 don’t see how she could possibly be happier with 
a brute who will very probably beat her when he is 
drunk.” 

44 1 don’t know,” said Eleanor slowly. 44 You know, 
Dick, there are plenty of women who respect a man 
more for beating them.” 

44 Would you? ” he said, in quick indignation. 

44 There are other ways of hurting besides beating,” 
she answered. 44 Yes, I could stand a good deal of hurt 
from the man I love.” ( 44 You — you hurt me all the 
time ! ” her thought cried out to him, but his eyes were 
stonily unseeing of what was in hers. ) 

44 1 wonder ! ” he said enigmatically. 

44 Don’t you believe it? ” she said, with a smile. 

44 1 know so little of the real you.” 

44 After all these years of friendship? ” 

44 There’s all the gulf that always lies between a 
man and a woman to bridge over,” he replied. 44 1 
never understood your affair with Rochester.” 

She was silent. 

Then she said — 

44 1 told you there was nothing genuine in that, either 
on his part or mine.” 

44 What reason had you for pretence? If Rochester 


342 ALLWARD 

hadn’t been a trifler by profession, it would have 
been — — ” 

“ Dick, you’ve told me all that before,” she burst 
out impatiently. “ I’ll tell you something I’ve never 
told you till now, and you can pity me for a fool ever 
afterwards. I began that with the idea of making 
another man jealous — and failed ignominiously. Crude 
and mean, wasn’t it? ” 

“ What man? ” 

“ You,” she answered recklessly. 

He drew a deep and unhappy breath. 

“Me? Why on earth should I be jealous?” 

“ If you’d cared for me, it would have been inevit- 
able, wouldn’t it? ” 

“ I’ve always been fond of you.” 

“ Evasively. You’ve turned and twisted like a fox. 
You are afraid of me, of liking me, of having any- 
thing to do with me. Your friendship has been a 
sham ^ 

“ What rubbish ! ” 

“ Can you deny it ? It has put me in the unenviable 
position of a woman hunting down a quarry.” 

“ You are talking hysterically.” 

“ Naturally. It does make a woman hysterical 

Dick, Dick, forgive me. I am crazy to-day. But I 
am tired of pretending I don’t want you when I do. 
Mary can throw you over. I tried hard, and could 
not. You used to be fond of me, years ago. And now 
I shall be making my eyes red. The truth is that I 
have nothing left but you, and I’m frightened of losing 
you. I should lose you if you married. I shall lose 
you now for talking like this, unless you can forget 
it — and you can’t.” 

He looked at her helplessly. At last the game of 
pretence was over. At the back of his mind had 


ALLWARD 


343 


always been the instinct which had taught him to fear 
Eleanor, and he had refused to face it. But he was 
facing it now. And it was he who felt the cul- 
prit. 

“Don’t cry, for goodness’ sake don’t cry!” he 
repeated gently, chafing the hand which had always 
seemed to him such a drawing-room thing, so white 
and feminine, and light, but curiously lacking in 
vitality. Was she, after all, the solution, the waking 
out of a dream, the return into captivity? 

She drew her hand away, and controlled herself to 
smile at him. Little and appealing she had always 
been, and now he felt towards her as he felt towards 
a delicate, unhappy child. 

“ I must go. I shall never come to see you again. 
I shall never bother you again.” 

“ No, no,” he protested. “ I can’t leave you like 
this.” 

“ Let me go,” she said. “ You’ll breathe a great 
sigh of relief when I’ve gone.” 

He took her hand again, irresolutely. 

“ Eleanor, don’t talk like that.” 

“ Can you deny it ? ” she asked, with an hysterical 
laugh. 

“ Yes, I do deny it. We’ve been friends so long.” 

“ Do you mean we can go on being — friends — * 
still? ” 

He deliberately drowned the inner voices which 
clamoured “Fool!” at him. The wish to atone, the 
wish to somehow reconstruct things on the old com- 
fortable basis was paramount within him. 

“ If you will still have me as your friend,” he said. 

And Eleanor, letting her hand remain within his, 
knew that he was playing ostrich, and that they would 
never be the same as before. Sooner or later, later 


344 ALLWARD 

or sooner, their pretence of friendship would die of 

inanition. And then 

Nothing stood between them now. 

“ Will you come and see me? 55 she asked quickly. 
“How long will you stay in Bournemouth?” 

“ Another month. You have my address.” 

“ I will come.” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


Tea-time was the hour at which most of the flower- 
sellers returned, and Mrs. Cooper, on the watch for 
them, smoked her clay pipe and squatted down on a 
patch of grass not far from the van and hut which 
together constituted Julia White’s home in Heavenly 
Bottom. Meantime she chatted to one or two of the 
men who were idling about, pipe in mouth, waiting 
for their womenfolk to return and get tea, of the 
prospects of a long strawberry season. Even in 
Heavenly Bottom, Mrs. Cooper had a reputation as 
a conversationalist and a wit. Her darker claims to 
magic art were known too, but were more lightly 
thought of by these town gypsies than the cottage 
people up in the Forest. If she made a bit by 
“ dukkerin ” now and again, it was no more than the 
immemorial custom of women of gypsy blood, and 
only one out of many ways of coaxing money out of 
the pockets of those fools enough to believe what they 
were told. Most of the men bore gypsy names and 
were of “ half-and-half ” blood. Like Mrs. Cooper, 
they travelled up for the annual strawberry and hop 
seasons to North Hampshire, and in a few days they 
would be hitching their horses into their carts and 
vans, or getting cheap tickets if they had neither, for 
the migration. The summer’s work, in which man, 
wife and children joined, provided them with the 
winter’s necessities. There were some men who only 
worked in summer. Others, more industrious, did a 
little horse-dealing, chair-mending, or knife-grinding ; 
some were in the rag-and-bone trade, a few mended 
345 


346 


ALLWARD 


pots and pans, and so supplemented the summer’s 
earnings. But the women could always hawk flowers 
or pegs and so contribute to the daily bread. Occa- 
sional fortune-telling brought in a shilling or two, 
and old clothes were usually to be begged from 
customers or charitable people. What could not be 
worn fetched good money up at the second-hand 
clothes shop in the main road above. 

Presently the returning womenfolk appeared, hailed 
their menfolk with a shout and collected their grubby 
and straying offspring and disappeared one by one 
into their vans or shelters. Mrs. Cooper saw Julia, 
walking heavily with fatigue, an almost empty basket 
on one arm and her baby on the other, but she was 
alone. 

“ Mary’ll be cornin’ soon,” she told Charlotte, and 
invited her to share their tea. 

Charlotte accepted, and smoked her pipe silently 
while the tired mother made the tea, and called to her 
heavy-browed young husband that the meal was 
ready. The children, a slice of bread and pork-drip- 
ping in one hand, watched with fascination while the 
old gypsy constructed a cat’s cradle on her skinny 
hands with the piece of string that had lain at the 
bottom of their mother’s basket. They had been left 
to their own devices all day, a neighbour’s child, 
Emmy Stanley, having received a penny to keep an 
eye on the youngest to see he didn’t choke hisself. 
The baby woke to feed from its mother’s breast, and 
soon lay in its shawl on a box in the hut kicking its 
legs which had found freedom at last, the dummy teat, 
suspended to its neck by a string, trailing on the floor 
unheeded. 

But Mary did not come. Six o’clock, seven o’clock, 
and still no Mary. 


ALLWARD 


347 

Charlotte rose at last to go. She had to get back 
to Christchurch and then walk over the Forest to 
Thorneyhill, and she had told her grandchild Elsie 
that she would be back before night. Elsie would 
think she was in the lock-up again if she didn’t get 
back. So she left a message with Julia for Mary 
that she would be on Christchurch Bridge the next 
day at ten with news that was very pertickler; then 
she went off to get the tram back to Christchurch 
Priory. 

She had not wasted her day at all events. She 
knew Mary’s whereabouts and her five pounds was, 
therefore, virtually earned. She had but to tell 
Lyddon where to find Mary, and that she would do 
this very evening before she slept. 

At Christchurch she bought a piece of meat for 
supper, and then started on the tramp home. The 
road followed the river at first, and the sweet lush 
smell of the rushes and water-meadows, fragrant after 
the day, reached her. The honeysuckle was begin- 
ning to flower in the hedgerows, and the first dog- 
roses ; the meadow-sweet was unfurling its creamy 
croziers among the rushes, and the flags were yellow 
in the ditch. Dust powdered the wayside, and the 
evening air was heavy. It was close on eight o’clock: 
the long twilight had begun. The birds were flying 
low. Charlotte sniffed the air. “ That’s no river 
damp,” she said to herself. “ Kekker. It’s a-blowin’ 
off the sea. I lay we gets some wet to-morrow unless 
the wind changes.” 

She walked with a steady slouch up the road. At 
the Carpenter’s Arms, half-way home, she could get 
a bottle of stout to wash down her evening meal — 
she would allow herself no more until she had seen 
Lyddon, and the next day — well, it didn’t matter how 


348 


ALLWARD 


drunk she was. Three of the sovereigns would join 
the rest of her secret hoard, with the rest she could 
make merry. 

But Charlotte’s occasional debauches had no effect 
on her seasoned body. She was not tired after her 
day. She could outwalk the younger generation. In 
the days of her childbearing she was walking her 
twelve miles a day a week after her confinement, the 
new baby in her arms. 

The sky had clouded over, the twilight deepened, 
when she came out of the public-house. She began 
to walk up the long Bransgore hill; and the smell of 
the forest and the turf-smoke from the cottage chim- 
neys told her she was nearing home. A villager at a 
gate saw her approaching, and went within doors, 
while Mrs. Cooper chuckled to herself. In Thorney- 
hill there were those who were chary of encountering 
the witch when dusk had fallen. Then she turned off 
towards the holms past the schools, and another half- 
mile brought her to her tent. 

Elsie, her freckled grandchild, was waiting her, 
and showed her untidy fair head above the ragged 
tent. She was hugging a black kitten ; the tame 
magpie that always followed them on their wanderings 
had hopped on the ridge-pole and sat awaiting his 
supper. 

“ Got the kekkavi on the yog? ” (Is the pot on the 
fire?) her grandmother said to her, and the child 
knew from her tone that the old woman was neither 
drunk nor ill-tempered, and that this evening she 
had no blows to evade. In spite of all, Elsie loved her 
grandmam, and was her slave. The old woman could 
hold her fascinated with tales and the ballads which 
she knew and taught Elsie when she was in a cheerful 
mood. 


ALLWARD 


349 


“ There’s country songs, and old fashi’ned songs,” 
her granny would say, 44 and the old fashi’ned songs 
is the best.” The child loved most one about a 
knight and his lady who died a tragic death and were 
buried side by side. From each tomb a brier rose 
grew, and leaning towards the other formed what the 
old woman called a 44 true lovyers’ knot.” Charlotte 
liked to talk Romany to the child, too, it was useful 
when she wanted to give Elsie directions incompre- 
hensible to the 44 boro yooi mush,” the keepers, or the 
gaujos that came to have their fortunes told. 

The meat went into the pot with some vegetables 
produced from under a corner of a blanket by the 
child, and an appetising odour arose. 

44 1 yeerd some one in the bushes, jus’ now,” 
remarked the child, 44 creepin’ about like as if they 
didn’t want to be seen.” 

44 Why didn’t you dikk out then, you little dinn P ” 

44 1 hollered.” 

44 ’Twas one of they Lanes ; they’re camped near-by. 
They’d best let me catch ’em sneakin’ around.” 

44 No, ’twasn’t them,” said Elsie, who played with 
the two Lane girls of her own age. 44 Hush, there 
’tis agen ! ” 

Mrs. Cooper got up from the heap of bracken on 
which she sat, and going outside the tent listened 
for a moment. An owl was calling 44 Hoo-hoo,” there 
was the distant goat-like call of the snipe, and the 
drowsy sound of the nightjar. But her keen old 
ears detected a movement that was human, as Elsie’s 
had done. She went noiselessly around the thick 
clump of hollies that sheltered the tent on three sides, 
and saw a young woman seated beneath a gorse bush. 

44 Who is it? ” she asked harshly. 

Her visitor jumped up. 


350 


ALLWARD 


“ It’s me, it’s Mary James,” she exclaimed in a 
breathless voice. “ I didn’t want Elsie nor nobody 
to see me. I wants to ask you something.” 

“You’ve come all the ways from Bournesmouth ! ” 
said Mrs. Cooper. “ Dordi, dordi 1 Didn’t you get 
the lav I left with Julia for you? ” 

“I an’t seen Julia since this mornin’,” said Mary. 
“ I met Alf in Bournesmouth as I was goin’ back, and 
he told me he seen you and then — * — • I took it into 
my yed to come up yer and see you to-night.” 

“ Ov in, and besh alay,” said Mrs. Cooper, with no 
show of surprise. “ I knowed you would come, and 
I’ve a nice bit of meat a-br oilin’, enough for us all 
and Tom thar, and to spare. You needn’t mind Elsie, 
my darling, Lord love us, she’d bite her little tongue 
off rather than spik of anything her gran told her to 
kip to her kukri; and yer aunt and they’s all in havin’ 
their bit of supper most likely. Nobody’s goin’ to 
come yer this time of evenin’. Where are you a-goin’ 
to atch to-night ? ” 

“ I’m a-goin’ to walk back to Christchurch. There’s 
a tram what goes at eleven, and if I walks quick, I 
can catch it if I starts ha’f an hour from now.” 

“ You’re goin’ to lei a bit of hawben first, my gal, 
and then I’ll send Elsie off somewheres if you wants 
to spik with me. Is it the stars you want to know? 
Thar, Elsie found an effut down there by the bog 
to-day and bro’t it back, and that means it’s a good 
night for such things. Ker sig, and ov in the tan. 
You ain’t afraid to eat with the chovihaun, are 
you? ” 

“ No,” said Mary dully. 

“ That’s right. The wind’s blowin’ up damp, and 
you shiverin’ already, I thought p’raps you was 
atrash of mandy (afraid of me).” 


ALLWARD 


351 


There was a sudden flapping of wings, and the 
magpie, impatient for its delayed supper, settled 
unsteadily on Mrs. Cooper’s shoulder. Mary uttered 
a little cry. 

“ It’s on’y old Tom, you knows old Tom, the varmint. 
Follers us about he do.” 

The magpie flew off again and preceded them. The 
next moment Mary was seated within the grimy little 
oval of the tent; while Elsie, guarding the pot, kept 
her smiling freckled face turned in the direction of 
the visitor. 

“You tell any one Mary James come yer, and I’ll 
mor you ! ” her granny threatened. Elsie made no 
answer. The kitten crawled unsteadily towards Mary, 
the magpie hopped at the entrance. 

“ Rain’s about,” said Mrs. Cooper. “ But they 
won’t begin pickin’ strawberries for another two 
wiks.” 

“ First of June, to-morrow,” Mary said, remem- 
bering. 

“ That’s right, my dear,” Mrs. Cooper rejoined. 
“ Elsie and me goes off up country on Monday, God 
willin’. You goin’ up for the pickin’?” 

“ I dunno,” was Mary’s listless reply. 

“You’re gettin’ married instead?” suggested the 
old woman, maliciously, pushing her untidy black 
hair out of her light, uncanny eyes. 

“ I dunno.” 

“ P’raps you’ll say you dunno which mush you’re 
a-goin’ to lei, neither! Stop that grinnin’, Elsie, 
else I’ll del you! What me and Mary says ain’t 
for your yers ! ” 

But Mary had no answer for her. A curious sense 
of well-being possessed her in spite of the trouble 
which throbbed in her wild young heart. The wood 


352 


ALLWARD 


smoke, the dear friendly hollies, the familiarity of 
the tent life, soothed her as if with a kind of enchant- 
ment. Perhaps a kind of nostalgia as well as the 
desperate expedient of seeing Charlotte Cooper had 
impelled her on the long way to Thorneyhill. Alf 
had wanted to accompany her, and they had almost 
quarrelled when she had obstinately refused to let 
him. The memory of his sulky, heavy-jawed face 
was like the memory of a bad dream, which had fallen 
from her as she walked along the twilight road to the 
old familiar camping places. 

“ I co’t a young cuckoo to-day,” said Elsie suddenly. 

“ What did you do with it? ” asked the old 
woman. 

“ Killed it,” answered the child callously, as the 
kitten, if it could have spoken, would have told of the 
butterfly it had mauled to death with its soft paws 
that morning. “ I give it to Tibby, the Lanes’ 
old cat.” 

The meat was cooked at last and cut up on a plate 
with a knife. Charlotte had no excess of crockery, 
or cutlery, so she and Elsie helped themselves with 
their fingers and put their meat on a piece of bread, 
while Mary as guest was given a fork. The magpie 
came in for the bits which were flung him from time 
to time. Mary had not eaten since midday and was 
glad of the savoury food. 

“ Now you praster along, and go off somewhere,” 
said Mrs. Cooper to her grandchild. “ Don’t you let 
me dikk you until I hollers you. You can take that 
bit of meat over to Louie Lane, if you likes.” 

Elsie needed no second hint. She took the meat, 
wrapped it over with a corner of her soiled pinafore, 
and disappeared among the hollies. 


ALLWARD 


353 


“ Now you can spik free and fearless,” said Mrs. 
Cooper, approaching her face close to her visitor’s. 
“ You needn’t tell me what bro’t you yer. I tardered 
you! Down there I says, 4 Mary James shall come 
to me,’ I says. 4 She won’t know why she’s a-comin’,’ 
I says, 4 but come she must. Her feet ’ll bring her, 
want she, won’t she.’ Ah, my dearie, you’ve a-used 
that boro rye of yours cruel, you have. I wonders to 
myself. 4 What’s the rakli thinkin’ of,’ I thinks, 4 to 
treat her lovyer the ways she’s treated hers ! What’s 
the gals cornin’ to ? Divvy, clean divvy, off their yeds ! ’ 
He come to me, and 4 Find her,’ he says, 4 or I’ll 
thow meself into the pond down there in the brick- 
valley,’ he says. 4 Don’t do that, my gennleman,’ 
I says. 4 The devil takes those what kills their selves,’ 
I says, 4 and you won’t be no better off there than 
here. I’ll bring her back to you,’ I says. 4 It’s writ 
clear in the stars that back to you she’ll come, and 
what the stars says don’t never fail.’ ” 

Mary gazed at her, half -hypnotized by her cunning 
patter. 

44 What’re you a-doin’ of, you silly gal,” said Mrs. 
Cooper, bringing her brows together and transfixing 
Mary’s frightened brown eyes with hers, 44 to send 
him to his bloody grave and take up with Alf Stace! 
Alf Stace! a raffaly little gaujo what thinks he’s 
bought the fair because he had some luck fightin’ a 
mush in a picter pallis ! You don’t kom him, nor 
never will ! ” 

44 I’m a-goin’ to marry him,” said Mary, in a 
half-voice. 

44 Kekker, chai! You’ll never rummer that mush, 
not if he walked to you over gold. I knows what I’m 
a-sayin’ of. Listen! that boro rye of yours wants to 
see you.” 


354 , 


ALLWARD 


“ Where is he? ” asked Mary, with dry lips. 

“ Two miles from yer — up against Wootton Pits. 
That is, if he ain’t drownded hisself yet.” 

“ Did he — did he say he wanted to see me ? ” 

“Haven’t I told you? You’re a-goin’ to see him.” 

“No, no!” 

“ Why? ” 

Mary was silent, with quivering lips. Then she 
said: 

“ There’s Alf ” 

“ Alf ! ” cried the old woman with scorn. “ Let him 
know you’ve jumped the broomstick with that fine 
gaujo of yours, and a lot he’d want to marry you. 
I knows him ! He’ve took up with you this year. 
Last year he went off with one of them Dyers down in 
the Bottom, and she’ve a baby by him now. She’ve 
found him a bad bargain. And soon, whether you’ve 
a-married him or not, he’ll have another lubbeny, 
and be findin’ out about your Adam, and throwin’ 
him up to you. He’s got no good Romany blood in 
him, not a drop, nor any good blood of any sorts 
whatever.” 

Mary sat motionless. The news that Alf had had 
a mistress did not affect her as it would have if she 
had loved him. 

“ He’s martel sure to yer about you and Adam.” 

“ There’s nothin’ to yer, if he did,” said Mary, 
waking into indignation. “ Adam ain’t never had 
nothin’ wrong of me, nor me of him.” 

“ More fool he,” said Mrs. Cooper sardonically. 
“ But folks thinks different, and so’ll Alf Stace, I give 
you my honest word. Why did your dad give you 
to him, and you jump the broomstick with him if you 
was on’y brother and sister? ” 

“ Who told you? ” 


ALLWARD 


355 


“ No less than your Adam hisself. I’ll not let any 
one know — what I yers I kips to myself ; but they 
Whichers knows — ♦ — ” 

“ I’ll tell Alf,” said Mary, with dull defiance. 

“ Don’t you tell him nothin’ till you’ve a-spoke with 
your rye up at Wootton.” 

Mary sat irresolute. 

“ Tell me, what did you think you was cornin’ to me 
for? ” asked Mrs. Cooper, with a sudden hawk-like 
glance at her. 

Mary roused herself. “You give Amy Brush- 
field up at the Post Office somethink to put in Eli 
Stevens’ tea. Amy told Rose Pidgeley, and Rose 
told aunt. It was somethin’ to make him love her 
true.” 

“ I might or I mightn’t,” said Mrs. Cooper sharply. 
“Well?” 

Mary unclasped her hand. A half-crown lay in it. 

“ I want somethink to take true love away,” she 
whispered. “ To stop the achin’ and the thinkin’ and 
the wantin’. Somethink what’ll make you never 
think no more of the mush.” 

“ There’s on’y three things’ll stop that,” said Mrs. 
Cooper deliberately. “ The first’s the best. Go off 
with the mush on the tober, and live with him — that’ll 
stop the achin’, and very like the love too.” 

“ What’s the others ? ” 

“ To drownd yerself in the pond, or to wait until 
you’re too old and tough to care for any mush what 
ever wore trousers.” 

Mary made no answer. 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Cooper, “ what am I to say to 
you lovyer when he pookers mandy? ” 

“ I dunno,” said Mary, expressionlessly. “ I must 
sleep on it.” 


356 


ALLWARD 


44 Thinkin’s a hard pillow. Will you come yer to- 
morrow, if I waits for you? ” 

“ Yes.” 

44 When will you come? ” 

44 About middle day,” said Mary slowly. 

44 If you makes a fool of me — * — ” said the old 
woman threateningly. 44 I’ve treated you tatcho, and 
you must treat me tatcho.” 

The magpie outside gave a sudden cry and Mary 
started in affright. 

44 That’s nothin’ ; he often makes a godli like that. 
Listen, I feels a dukkerin’ feelin’ cornin’ over me. 
Give me you vaster, and wait a minute.” 

Mary gave her hand, and watched with a shudder 
the filmy look that crept into Charlotte’s eyes. 

44 There’s no gettin’ away,” she said in a sepulchral 
voice. 44 1 sees you and your boro rye travellin’ along 
the same drum. Happy I sees you, and no adders to 
trouble you. There’s a good time cornin’, dearie. 
I sees it.” 

She clutched Mary’s hand tighter, and began to 
mutter the jargon which the traveller folk called 
Injun. It was certainly not Romany. Mary sat 
spellbound with fear and superstition. 

44 There’s sunshine cornin’ to you,” she said. 44 1 
feels it on my yed. Sunshine. And plenty of von- 
gar. 1 You won’t never need so long as you live. But 
there comes a pookerin’ kosht in the road, my dearie, 
a sign-post at cross roads, and there you stands with 
tears in your yokkers, and a smile on your face.” 

44 Go on,” said Mary. 

44 You goes one road and the boro rye goes the 
other,” said the witch in the same strained voice. 

44 Are there tears in his eyes, too? ” said Mary. 

1 Money. 


ALLWARD 


357 


“ I can’t see — — ” 

She sat rigid and still. 

“ Don’t tell me no more,” said Mary hoarsely. 

Mrs. Cooper shook her lean body, and dropped the 
girl’s hand. 

“ It’s no good to see too far,” she said. “ What do 
one want more than to know that there’s a few lucky 
years ahead? None wants to see around more than 
one earner, thank the dear Duvvlus. I’ve lived long 
enough to jin that the odds and the evens tarns up 
reg’lar. If I drops a shillin’ to-day, I pick up one 
on the saulo 1 as likely as not.” 

Her fingers had closed around the half-crown which 
had been in Mary’s hand. She spat on it, and put it 
in her ragged skirt. 


1 Morrow. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


Lyddon walked with Eleanor by the cart track 
across the moor to the road and then into the village. 
At Miss Price’s house, where the motor awaited her 
in the coach-house which Lyddon himself had helped 
to build, he left her. He did not wish to see Miss 
Price. They had talked of indifferent matters on the 
way, almost as if they had been strangers to each 
other. The fine grey rain fell about them as they 
bade each other good-bye, and clung like jewelled 
mist to the bushes. He stopped at the baker’s on the 
way back to buy a loaf, and as he came out the car 
rushed past him. He had refused Eleanor’s offer to 
give him a lift on the way back. He wanted to get 
away from her so that he might be able to adjust 
their new attitude towards each other, so disturbing, 
so uncomfortable. He left the last cottage behind 
him at last, and going past White’s Bushes, in whose 
shelter Mrs. Cooper had warned him not to camp, he 
turned off towards the marl pits. There was only a 
subdued twitter, here and there, from the birds; it 
was as if the enveloping cloud had muffled the many 
voices of the forest, as if he were walking in an under- 
world, grey-velveted, made of dew, colourless, where 
nothing was real or tangible, but would vanish like 
pictures in steam in a moment. 

He, too, had the feeling that he was walking in a 
dream. The wet perfume of the forest rose to him, 
the bracken and heather brushed against his leggings, 
and a forest pony and her foal, their thick manes and 
tails furred with a myriad minute drops, started out of 
358 


ALLWARD 


359 

the deep cart rut, along which they had been walking. 
To-morrow he would break up his camp and move 
towards that wild north of the forest that he wanted 
to explore, and set up his tent in some spot where not 
even gypsies come; for, as Mary had once said, they 
have their rounds and haunts just as the stoat or rabbit 
have theirs. There was no need for him to linger 
here now, his expectation of seeing Mary had gone. 
She had slipped out of his grasp with the instinct of 
escape that any wild thing has. She would never 
come back. 

He reached his tent. He had flung a piece of sack- 
ing over the donkey’s back, and it was eating the wet 
gorse contentedly. Tobacco smoke floated out to him 
from the partially uncovered opening, and he strode 
forward with surprise. 

“ It’s all right, my lucky gennleman. I was just 
keepin’ your fire warm for you, and havin’ a bit of 
baccy.” 

He beheld Mrs. Cooper beside his fire-tray, her 
blackened clay in her mouth, her light blue eyes 
blinking confusedly. Her presence filled the tent with 
an odour of whisky as well as of shag, and she spoke 
with the carefully genteel accent of the half-intoxi- 
cated. Her black head was bare, her hair falling down 
her neck in dank wisps. She might have been painted 
as a disreputable sibyl, for even in drink and age her 
head was comely. 

“ Where’s them five suwerins, them beautiful bars 
that you promised, my dearie?” 

“ You had one. The other four were promised if 
you found Mary James,” said Lyddon, ill-pleased to 
find her installed in his tent. 

“ Well, and han’t I found her? Lord love us and 
save us, is that all the thanks I gets ? ” 


360 


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44 Look here, Mrs. Cooper, I want to write a letter or 
two. We’ll settle this question of the money to- 
morrow.” 

44 You thinks I’m motto. Not a drop of drink but 
for a little tea have I touched since I last seen you, the 
Lord would tell you if He could spik down from 
Heaven.” 

Her dignity, her wounded defence might have con- 
vinced him if he had not smelt the odour of spirits 
which proceeded from her. 

44 You treat me tatcho and I’ll treat you tatcho,” she 
said huskily, watching his eyes. 44 It’s nothin’ more 
than truth. I found your gal yesterday. She’s livin’ 
in Heavenly Bottom, long of her cousin, Gerania 
Smith’s gal, what married a White ! ” 

He put his hand into his breast-pocket, drew 
out a leather purse, and handed her four sover- 
eigns. 

44 Five — — !” she clamoured, and added coaxingly, 
44 Lord love me, you what puts your hand in your 
pockets and finds gold there an’t goin’ to begurtch a 
poor old traveller what she’ve arned fair and honest? 
Every momin’ I’ve prayed for you, my darling, that 
you might live rich and happy. You be kushti to 
mandy, and mandy’ll be kushti to you — * — ” 

He stopped her flow of speech. 44 Have you seen 
Mary ? ” 

44 She wasn’t two mile from yer last night. She 
corned to my tan and had a bit to eat along of me and 
Elsie. 4 You go along and see the rye,’ I says, but 
she was atrash to come, frightened to death she were. 
But she’ll come, you’ll see, it’s you she koms, and no 
other. All this yer ta’ak about marryin’ another mush 
don’t mean nothin’.” 

44 I’m going away to-morrow,” he said. 


ALLWARD 


361 

“ Now don’t you be in such a hurry, my gennleman. 
You give your little rawnie time.” 

But he had had enough of Mrs. Cooper. He handed 
her the other sovereign she coveted, and bade her 
good-bye. His momentary belief in her, sober, 
did not extend to what she told him when drunk. 
He did not believe that Mary had visited her, he 
was doubtful as to whether she really knew her where- 
abouts. 

Mrs. Cooper, the object of her visit gained, rose to 
her feet, pulling the man’s coat that she wore by way 
of bodice closer and holding the precious gold tightly 
in her hand. 

“ Where is Heavenly Bottom? ” he asked as she bade 
him cordial farewell. 

She explained, not too lucidly, and confirmed his 
belief that she was not speaking the truth. Well, poor 
old vagabond, she had drawn money from his pocket 
which would keep her in comfort for some little 
while, and he did not regret it. She and her 
kind were doomed to disappear before the clumsy 
hand of civilisation, and a society which does not 
tolerate their mode of life. Reprobate as she was, 
she lived a clean life, she had decencies unknown 
to slum dwellers ; she loved the free air and 
sun and road with a love inherited from wan- 
dering forbears, and she was individual with 
an individuality impossible to those who live in 
herds. 

His fire had died down, and from a sack in the 
corner of the tent he fed it with fresh chips, and hung 
the pot, filled with water, above it. He had thought 
that Mrs. Cooper had taken her departure, but as he 
stooped to blow the dying embers into flame, he heard 
movements at his tent door. The old woman must 


362 


ALLWARD 


have returned again with some fresh design for wheed- 
ling something out of him. 

“ Well, what is it now? ” he called out, shortly. 

There was no answer, and he unbent his back with 
impatience, running his hand over his ash-bestrewn 
hair. 

“ What the devil is it? Can’t you come in? ” 

And there, at the opening which divided the two 
parts of the tent, he saw Mary’s face. It was not the 
face he knew, there were subtle differences, the cheeks 
were pale, dark rings had traced themselves beneath 
her eyes, there were no gold earrings swinging on 
either side from the shadow of her hair, the sun- 
warmed color and vitality seemed to have departed 
from her. 

“ Can I come in a minnit? ” she asked in the husky 
voice he knew so well. 

“You are ill?” he cried. 

She put her ringless hand to her breast, beneath 
her coat. 

“ No, I ain’t,” she said. “ Alf got angry with me last 
night, and hit me yer, and I couldn’t sleep ” 

“ The brute, the damned brute ! ” 

He went to her, and drew her inside, making her 
sit on his bedding. 

“ You are wet, dearest.” 

“ That ain’t nothin’,” she replied with an attempt at 
her old sweet smile. “ If us travellers minded a bit of 
wet, look ” 

“ Off with your coat, and you’re going to drink a 
little brandy. I’ve some in my flask here. It’ll make 
you feel better.” 

She allowed him to draw her coat off with gentle 
firmness and submitted to his authority enough to 
drink a little of the brandy he poured out. 


ALLWARD 363 

“ You dosed me with tatti pani once,” he said. 
44 Don’t you remember? ” 

64 1 remembers,” she answered. 

44 You are still feeling queer,” he said in distress. 

44 No, I ain’t. The brandy done me good. It tarned 
me all sick and dizzy last night, though.” 

She opened her faded red blouse simply, and dis- 
played a livid mark on her left breast. 44 It’s nothin’ 
much,” she added to allay his horror. And then she 
added as she closed the blouse : 44 He didn’t mean to 

hit so hard; his morleys is like iron.” 

Speech failed him and she leant forward and put 
her hand on his knee. 

44 Don’t keer like that,” she said softly. 44 Now I 
wishes I hadn’t told you.” 

She submitted passively when he kissed it, and suf- 
fered him to turn back the blouse and press his lips 
gently to the bruise. When he released her, her eyes 
were full of tears which did not fall. 

44 I’ve made you unhappy ; I always make you 
unhappy,” he said. 

44 No, you don’t then, Adam. You’re all the ’appi- 
ness I got.” 

44 Tell me,” he said, abruptly. 44 Are you going to 
marry this beast? ” 

She shook her head. 

44 He met some one last night as told him ’bout 
you an’ me. Charlotte Cooper said he would. An 
he didn’t believe as there wan’t nothin’ in it. He tho’t 
I’d a-bin yer to you last night, an’ he was waitin’ for 
me when I got back.” 

44 And he hit you? ” 

44 Yes ” 

He could not speak, but held her hand to his lips. 

44 Why did you run away from me? ” he said at last. 


364 


ALLWARD 


44 Miss Price come, an’ she told me just what I’d 
a-bin tellin’ myself. It ain’t for you to marry a 
traveller, Adam. And she told me about the raunie — 
that raunie, what come to see you down in the field 
that day — — ” 

44 I told you,” he said, quickly, 44 that she was nothing 
more than my friend.” 

44 She koms you.” 

44 Love must be on both sides. Do you think I want 
her and long for her as I do you? ” 

44 If you was to marry her — — ” 

44 Hang it, I won’t marry her.” 

All his smothered hostility to Eleanor burst into 
flame as he found her an obstacle between himself and 
Mary. 

She leant her head against his shoulder, as if to 
pacify him. 

44 She’s a lady barn ” 

44 Damn her birth ! ” 

44 1 must spik ” 

44 You’re not to mention her again.” 

44 She was yer to-day. I seen the car and her in 
it — ■ — ” 

He laid his hand over her mouth. She kissed 
it, her great fawn-brown eyes still glistening with 
tears. 

44 Mary, are you trying to punish me ? ” 

44 Don’t be a dinn,” she said gently, drawing away 
his hand. 

44 Are you going to run away again ? ” 

44 Not without tellin’ you,” she answered shyly. 

44 But never? ” 

44 Never ’s a long road,” said she. 

Her eyes looked out at the vaporous forest without. 
Mrs. Cooper’s dukkerin was in her ears. 44 There 


ALLWARD 365 

comes a sign-post at cross-roads. You goes one way, 
and the boro rye another.” 

He pulled her across to him. 

“You’ll belong to me now and always?” 

“ As long as you wants me,” she replied slowly. 

“Why shouldn’t we get married then?” 

“ We’se married already traveller way,” she whis- 
pered. “ Let it bide at that, Adam. It’s our ways, 
look, an’ I was gived to you ” 

The old combat, the old instinct, arose within him! 
but there was also the ever-present fear of frightening 
his wild girl away from him again. 

“ Mary, listen,” he said. “ Let the gypsy marriage 
hold for a year — and then, will you marry me in the 
gaujo way? Somehow, I’d like it. I have noth- 
ing to give you that is worth what you are 
giving me, except my name. And that you won’t 
accept.” 

“ I’ll see,” said she, doubtfully. “ Maybe you’ll 
grow tired of me by then.” 

“ I expect so,” said he ironically. 

“ Our traveller ways ain’t your ways ” 

“ How often you’ve said that ! ” 

“ If it pleases you, I’ll promise,” she breathed. 

“What’s the water bilin’ for? Your dinner?” 

“ It’s early for that. No, my shirt.” 

“ That’s not men’s work ! ” she laughed. “ I’ll 
wash it out for you; and look, there’s the sun showin’ 
out ! ” 

“ You’re not fit for washing? ” he protested. 

“ I’m awright,” she assured him. “ How could I 
feel bad an’ naflo when I was happy like this ! ” 

Her eyes shone at him. 

“ What you got for dinner, then? ” she asked. 


366 


ALLWARD 


“ What do you say to sausages ? ” he suggested, 
remembering her taste. 

“ I likes sausages,” she said. “ I likes the noise they 
makes in the frazzlengro of a wet day.” 

He showed her his stores. 

“ You see I’ve got enough for two.” 

“ And you left all that yer when you bin up Tharney- 
hill? It’s a wonder it wasn’t took. Some of them 
dirty peerdies’ll take anything. And if ’twas mast 
time, and the pigs was about, they’d smell it out, and 
make a fine mess.” 

“ I’d no one to leave in charge.” 

“ Alius ’ud have come. She’d do anything for 
you.” 

“ She offered to come off with me,” said Lyddon, 
and told the story of Allus’s visit that morning. 

“ She’s a funny little martel,” was Mary’s com- 
ment. “ Look, it is a-clearin’ I The birds is begin- 
nin’. There’s a bit of blue.” 

“ There’s all the summer before us ! ” 

Mary began to take the boiling pot off the hook. 
He sprang forward and did it for her. 

“ What you do that for? ” 

u I don’t want you to lift the heavy pot.” 

“ I’m not so bad as that,” she said. “ Now for your 
shirt. We’ll be able to dry it after all, if this yer rain 
kips off.” 

“ I want to move to-day.” 

“ What, the keepers bin after you ? ” 

“No. I just want to get off. A large bit of Eng- 
land belongs to us — all the roads and all the way- 
sides.” 

“ You’ll soon find they doesn’t when the gav- 
mushes and them comes after you and moves you 
on.” 


ALLWARD 


367 


44 I want to be moved on.” 

44 1 don’t keer where we goes,” said Mary. She 
stopped her foraging for the soap to kiss the arm that 
was around her waist and spoke with the hoarseness 
that he knew meant emotion. 44 So long as you’re with 
me, Adam.” 

44 What are you hunting for? ” he asked, burying 
his face in the smoky dark hair. 

44 Soap.” 

44 Bother the shirt. Besides, I’ve only the soap I 
wash with and that’s a wafer.” 

44 Well, you’d best get some afore we starts, down 
Thameyhill,” she said practically. 

44 We won’t go through Thorneyhill. We’ll go 
through Burley. You’ll want some things, too.” 

44 1 don’t want much,” she said modestly. 

44 1 know one thing you want, and that’s your ear- 
rings ! You don’t look yourself without them. I’ll 
buy you some new ones in the first town we have to 
pass through. There’s something else too <” 

He took the rings out of his pocket and slipped them 
on her brown hand. 

44 There, now you look married.” 

She laughed, with a touch of constraint. 

44 Adam! You’re beyavin’ like as if you was a 
chavi.” 

44 I’m going to put our goods and chattels together, 
and pack them in the cart.” 

He went, whistling, out among the wet gorse-bushes 
outside, and dragged the tarpaulin off the cart. The 
donkey looked up, as though it knew a journey was 
before it. The rain had stopped and the sun, shining 
through the disappearing vapour, made the hanging 
drops glitter and shimmer with living light. Away in 
the enclosure the cuckoo began to call: 44 Cuckoo! 


368 


ALLWARD 


Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! ” Lyddon stopped whistling to 
imitate it, light-heartedly. 

Mary watched and listened, with tender eyes. 

Then she folded the soiled shirt. “ If we’re shiftin’, 
it’ll have to do to-morrer,” she said to herself. 












































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